Irfan Pathan recounts thrilling encounter against Pakistan, says 'they didn’t know what bowl-out was'

Whenever we talk about the match played between India and Pakistan at the 2007 World Cup, the mind straight away goes to the thrilling final in which MS Dhoni led team India picked up the win by 5 runs.

However, the two heavyweights had come face to face with each other in a group stage match that had that had to be decided by bowl-out. Before the addition of Super Over, a bowl-out was the only way to resolve the game which ended in a draw.

During the group stage encounter, the men in blue put up 141/9 with the help of Robin Uthappa’s half-century. Pakistan got off to a poor start in the chase, suffering quick wickets, but in the end managed to take the match to a tie.

In the bowl-out, all three Indian players - Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag, and Robin Uthappa managed to hit the stumps. But the three Pakistan players - Umar Gul, Yasir Arafat, and Shahid Afridi missed the stumps, resulting to India’s win.

Former India cricketer Irfan Pathan looked back on the action-packed match and stated that the Pakistani side was not ready for a bowl out.

“Pakistan’s captain accepted it in one of the press conferences that they didn’t know about the bowl-out,” Pathan said in Star Sports’ special episode of Cricket Connected chat show named ‘Watch Along of the 2007 ICC World T20 between India and Pakistan’.

“When the time for bowl-out arrived, they were not sure if they should be taking full run-ups or a half run-ups. On the other hand, we came in prepared for the bow-out and the result was quite evident,” Pathan further said.

“There was no competition between the two teams. When the regulation match was going on, there was a fierce competition between both the teams, and it was a close affair. But during the bowl-out, there was no competition,” he added.

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