India reaped the rewards of a massive punt taken by Rohit Sharma during the second Super Over of the 3rd T20I against Afghanistan on Wednesday when he tossed the ball towards Ravi Bishnoi and tasked him to defend 11.
While captains usually are a bit wary of the dangers of lobbing a ball towards a spinner at the death, Rohit went with his gut and Bishnoi delivered. Bishnoi got the prized scalps of Mohammad Nabi and Rahmanullah Gurbaz on the first and the third delivery respectively, and helped India claim the honours in a riveting and tense cliffhanger.
India's head coach, Rahul Dravid, lauded Rohit for making such a gutsy call and affirmed that Afghanistan would have emerged victorious had they batted the entire over and hence Rohit's decision to go for the kill was the right one.
"I think Rohit went with his gut, he went with a call... I think he felt that the spinner had a better chance to take those two wickets. It was one of games when 11 wasn't probably a huge score and where you know that if they batted those six balls, with the power they had, they probably would've got the 12 runs. You needed to take two wickets," Dravid was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz.
"I think it was a great call from the skipper to go with the spinner. He could've gone for two sixes but I thought Bishnoi was brilliant, because he bowled two superb balls. He pulled the length back... if the length had gone slightly fuller, the way they were batting, on this small ground it would've gone for a six. I think it was really good gut call from Rohit to go for the wickets and be more positive rather than probably a safer option which people would've expected," Dravid added.
