The scoop was in existence before T20s even came into being; but AB de Villiers got it humming like a ceiling fan and Rishabh Pant brought down the roof filling it with histrionics, teasing third man and leaving fine leg to fret
Indian audience of a certain vintage would remember Sachin Tendulkar kneeling down and lap-sweeping medium pacers on sluggish tracks of the subcontinent at the wink of this century. Australia’s cricket chroniclers claim the legendary aboriginal cricketer Johnny Mullagh played a stroke on one knee, wherein, ”the ball would touch the blade, and shoot high over the wicket-keeper’s head to the boundary,” a report during his tour to England in the 1870s read. Zimbabwe’s Douglas Marillier and Australia’s wicket-keeper Ryan Campbell produced intrepid versions of the lap sweep. Scoop to some pundits, and sweep to some others, but the stroke has existed in the fringes of the game before T20 cricket made it integral to the canvas of ambitious batsmen.