Virender Sehwag and Indian Team. (Photo Source: Breakfast with Champions)
Former India opener Virender Sehwag recently recalled the historic bowl-out between India and Pakistan during the 2007 ICC World Twenty 20. The two Asian giants were paired together in Group D with Scotland during the group stage of the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup. Both Asian powerhouses engaged in a thrilling tussle that led to a tie and the outcome was eventually decided by the first-ever bowl-out in cricketing history.
Bowlers of both teams were given a chance to hit the unguarded stumps at the other end once. Sehwag, along with the likes of Harbhajan Singh and Robin Uthappa, were among the Indian players who struck the stumps during the bowl-out. Pakistan, on the other hand, failed in all three of their attempts, which ultimately resulted in India capturing the match. In the bowl-out, the Men in Blue showed good use of their resources by virtue of the choice of spinners by captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Sehwag, who was arguably not a specialist and a captain’s go-to bowler, was the first person to take a shy at the stumps. The renowned former opener recently shared the advice he gave to Mahendra Singh Dhoni related to the bowl-out tactic. He asked Dhoni not to utilise the bowlers in the bowl-out considering they might have missed the target simply because of an extended run-up.
“So the very first match ended up in a bowl-out. I told MS (Dhoni) that I’ll be going first. I said I will do it as I was confident of hitting. I said don’t give it to the bowlers. He asked why so? I said they’ll mess up with their run-up,” Sehwag said in the latest episode of Breakfast With Champions.
We all had practised for bowl-out during warm-up fixtures: Sehwag
Sehwag also mentioned that throughout the warm-up stage, they practised for bowl-out, which helped India to emerge victorious in the first edition of the tournament against the arch-rivals. “It happened since we all had practised in the warm-ups. So we got used to the bowl-out. I don’t know of the other teams,” he added further.