Rishabh Pant, Rohit Sharma’s unnoticed ‘perfect move’ in South Africa’s T20 WC loss gets credit; Ravi Shastri says…

From a position of dominance, India were suddenly under the pressure. Even the win predictor sided with South Africa, giving them close to 90 per cent chance of win. Yet, India bounced back, with Hardik dismissing Klaasen in the 17th over, which completely turned the table in favour of India before Bumrah delivered two economical overs.

While, India were credited for holding their nerves under pressure with Hardik and Bumrah leading the rescue act, a “perfect move” from captain Rohit Sharma and Rishabh Pant went unnoticed although, it did find a mention from former India head coach Ravi Shastri on commentary.

Right after Bumrah’s third over, when South Africa needed 26 off the last 24, and with Klaasen in all readiness to fire against the next bowler to seal the victory, Pant called for a medical time-out. The physio was out on the ground to put some tape around his knee.

However, Shastri reckoned that India were only trying to slow down the game. “India doing everything possible, even slow down the game so that they can break the rhythm of these two explosive batters,” he said on-air.

The play resumed after a few minutes and Klaasen was dismissed in the first ball by Hardik, which eventually led to South Africa’s lower-order collapse.

Bumrah dismissed Marco Jansen in the next over, before Hardik returned to pick two more wickets in the final over as India won by seven runs to lift the T20 World Cup trophy, which they had last lifted in the inaugural season in 2007.