The Fire needed 44 off the last 33 balls on a tricky surface at the Utilita Bowl, with Salt on 26 off 25 and yet to find the boundary. But he surveyed the field and realised there were six fielders outside the inner circle, rather than the maximum five, and treated Luke Wood’s ball as a free hit. He smeared it over the leaping Jofra Archer, who was in off the boundary rope at long-on.

Salt immediately walked down the pitch with his right arm out, asking standing umpire Jack Shantry to call a no-ball – a call which was upheld after a check. He only scored one run off the resulting free hit, but hit the sixth ball of Wood’s five-ball set – the ‘extra’ ball – for four over mid-off, to leave the equation at a much simpler 35 off the final 30.

“Someone has fell asleep: three in the circle,” Carlos Brathwaite, the former West Indies allrounder and captain, said on BBC commentary. “I think that’s why Salt just swung at it, and he walked straight to the umpire and told him, there’s only three in the circle and it should be a no-ball. Good awareness from him of that.

“It’s the small things, the very small things… Jof in off the [rope], it went for a boundary. Tom Abell sleeping a little bit at long-off, should have been in the circle. As a result, it’s not only the no-ball, but it’s also four .. that’s five. And then you get the extra ball, nine. Nine from what really and truly could and should have been a wicket, and the whole game has changed on its head.”

Salt finished 47 not out off 37 balls on his Fire debut, hitting Chris Jordan for six over midwicket to seal the points with two balls to spare. “Conditions certainly weren’t easy,” he said. “I feel like that was a good toss to win for us, chasing a target… You always have to give yourself a few balls in low-scoring games like that.”