Robin Uthappa, the India batsman, while speaking on Star Sports’ Cricket Connected show, recalled how the Indian team was prepared for the possibility of a bowl-out even before their tied game in Durban during the 2007 men’s T20 World Cup.
India, who became the inaugural T20 World Cup champions that year, watched from the sidelines as their first match against Scotland was washed out, while the next game against Pakistan ended with level scores after 20 overs each.
According to tournament rules, the winner had to be decided through bowl-out, a unique exercise at that time – which seemed to catch both cricketers and officials off guard.
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However, despite the uniqueness of it all, India turned up well prepared, winning the game and progressing to the next round.
“Before every practice, we used to play a game after warm-up,” Uthappa recalled, “so what Venky [Venkatesh Prasad, the bowling coach] did was instead of playing football, he said let’s play bowl out [team of batsman against bowlers].”
“Among the batsmen, [Virender] Sehwag, Rohit [Sharma] and me [Uthappa] used to get a hit very often. So, when this match got tied, we were very excited and jubilant to be very honest because it was a match we almost lost and we managed to tie it.”
Throwback to Dhoni's first win as India captain 👇
🇮🇳 3:0 🇵🇰#DhoniRetirespic.twitter.com/kJrh70lfOd
— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) August 16, 2020
“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.”
While Pakistan opted for their specialist bowlers, who bowled with a shortened run-up, India decided to select two part-timers in Uthappa and Sehwag alongside Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan and Sreesanth. At the end of it, India managed to hit the stumps on each of their first three attempts, with none of Umar Gul, Yasir Arafat or Shahid Afridi managing to do so for Pakistan.
“I have to give credit to MS Dhoni at that point of time,” Uthappa said. “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’.”
