Former Indian bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad has revealed the strategy through which the team selected Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh for the bowl out against arch-rivals Pakistan in the 2007 World T20. Prasad stated that they knew about the rule of the bowl out in the tournament and there was no super over at that stage.
Prasad, who was India’s bowling coach back then, added that he used to absorb which bowlers were hitting the stumps consistently. In fact, batsmen like Robin Uthappa and Virender Sehwag also used to roll their arms and Prasad was quietly doing his job.
As Uthappa, Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh are slow bowlers, Prasad thought that chances of them hitting the stumps is more as the balance of spinners is better than the fast bowlers.
However, it was a gamble as Sehwag and Uthappa were not regular bowlers, especially the latter. Prasad went on to convince MS Dhoni that they should pick these three bowlers for the bowl out after the match was tied with both teams scoring 141 runs. On the other hand, Pakistan picked Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat and Umar Gul, the last two being fast bowlers.
Meanwhile, MS Dhoni had also played a master stroke in the bowl out. Dhoni had stationed himself right behind the stumps and not at his regular wicket-keeping position of being beside the stumps. Thus, he gave an indication to his bowlers where they needed to bowl whereas Kamran Akmal stood beside the stumps at his normal wicket-keeping position.
The plan worked wonders as India went on to hit the bullseye on all the three occasions whereas Pakistan were not able to hit the target even once.
“I knew who was hitting the wickets consistently in the practice. That’s when I saw Sehwag hitting, Uthappa hitting and Harbhajan hitting,” Venkatesh Prasad said while talking to Ravinchandran Ashwin on his YouTube show DRS with Ash.
“So we said okay fine. Nobody expected that our very first match would have a bowl-out. It was a tight game. It was a bowl-out. It was not hard for me to convince MS Dhoni, saying ‘these are the guys who are doing well’.
India was well prepared for the bowl out and the three players were able to hold their nerves. MS Dhoni-led team also went on to lift the 2007 T20 World Cup trophy after defeating Pakistan in the final by five runs.
