New Delhi, Aug 13: Recalling Team India's famous group match win over arch-rivals Pakistan via Bowl-Out during the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007, India cricketer Robin Uthappa revealed how the team prepared for the situation when the scores were tied.
Uthappa - who played a crucial role all through the tournament for the young Indian brigade led by MS Dhoni - said he was also amazed to see who Dhoni - captaining in his first tournament showed faith a non-bowler like him.
Speaking exclusively on a special Watch Along of the 2007 ICC World T20 between India and Pakistan, Uthappa said, "Before every practise, we used to play a game after warm-up, so what Venky (Venkatesh Prasad) did was instead of playing football, he said let's play bowl out (batsman vs bowlers). Among the batsmen, Sehwag, Rohit and me (Robin) used to get a hit very often.
"So, when this match (10th Match, ICC World Twenty20 at Durban, Group D) ended in a tie, we were very excited and jubilant to be very honest because it was a match we almost lost and we managed to tie it. If you go and look at the game, it was a losing game, Sreesanth bowled really well and we tied the game. Once we tied the game, emotions were very high and so was our confidence. I have to give credit to MS Dhoni at that point in time. At a very young age in his first tournament and his first game as captain, a guy went up to him, his teammate went up to him saying, who is a non-bowler and is not his main skill, went up to him and said "I have to bowl and I'm going to hit the stumps" and I swear he (Dhoni) didn't even bat an eyelid and said ok bowl."
"I have to bowl, I'm gonna hit the stumps!"
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) August 12, 2020
Who said this to @msdhoni before the #INDvPAK bowl out? 😏
Catch @robbieuthappa discussing this and more such anecdotes in the ICC #WT20 2007 Watch Along:
🗓️: Aug 14
⌚️: 11 AM
📺: Star Sports 1 Hindi/1HD Hindi/3/First pic.twitter.com/PtU2RzSuao