India vs Pakistan clashes are always high octane and in the year 2007 when both the teams played their first T20I against each other, it gave us a moment that hadn’t happened before and won’t happen again, ever.
The Group D encounter between these arch rivals took place in Durban and after winning the toss Pakistan put India to bat first. The Men In Blue were looking down the barrel at 36/4 but 50 from Robin Uthappa, and fired up knocks from MS Dhoni as well as Irfan Pathan led India to a respectable total of 141 runs for the loss of 8 wickets, while Mohammad Asif finished his spell with 4/18.
Even though wickets kept falling in the second innings, Misbah-ul-Haq kept the scoreboard ticking for Pakistan from one end and kept alive his team’s hopes of a victory.
When the India vs Pakistan match came to its last over, Shoaib Malik’s side needed twelve runs off the remaining six balls and Yasir Arafat took a single on the first delivery to put Misbah back on strike.
The MS Dhoni-led side, from which nobody expected the trophy, got a scare of their lifetime when Misbah hit 4, 2, 4 off S. Sreesanth’s next three deliveries to take Pakistan to 141 in 19.4 overs. Now, just a single were required off two balls and Pakistan might have sensed a victory, but eyes were on the two players who mattered the most at that particular moment.
S. Sreesanth bowled a short ball outside off and Misbah-ul-Haq missed it completely.
1 run and 1 delivery remaining. (Pin-drop silence in the crowd)
Misbah played the last delivery towards cover but found Yuvraj Singh waiting. The Indian fielder grabbed the ball and threw it towards Sreesanth who quickly dislodged the bails to end Misbah’s valiant 53 off 46 innings, forcing the match towards a tie.
After a thrilling T20 contest, what followed next was even more exciting — the Bowl Out. Both India and Pakistan were to make five attempts in order to decide the winner of the match.
What happened next couldn’t be described in words as it went on to become one of the most cherishable moments of Indian Cricket.
Watch the bowl out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY9fHrJf19I
( Video Source: Crazy 4 Travel )
The tiebreaker was kind of an anticlimactic story as India hit the stumps in the first 3 attempts while Pakistan, on the other hand, couldn’t even manage to do so even once.