Former Indian pacer, Venkatesh Prasad has recalled his sledging incident against Aamir Sohail during the high-octane India-Pakistan ICC World Cup 1996 quarter-final in Bengaluru. Recalling the sledging incident which took place in the 15th over of Pakistan’s unsuccessful 288-run chase, Prasad revealed there were words exchanged between him and the former Pakistan opener.
During teh chase, the men in green got the required start owing to the brilliant knocks from Saeed Anwar and Sohail. The latter kept on smashing the Indian bowlers from the word go. In the 15th over, he came down the track and smashed Prasad to the extra-cover boundary and Sohail sledged the pacer by pointing his fingers at the cover boundary, hinting he would send the following ball to the same place. However, Prasad dismissed the batsman by sending his off-stump for a cartwheel. Pakistan collapsed after Sohail’s dismissal as they went from 113 for 1 to 239 for 9, eventually getting knocked out of the tournament.
Speaking to R Ashwin on his YouTube show, DRS with Ash, Prasad recalled the incident, as he said, “If I have to sort of talk about that particular incident, the point is it was a World Cup quarter-final game. With the expectations and hype given by the media, then it was very important for us to win to qualify for the semi-final. It was actually sort of a slap (via the off-side), he came down the track and hit the ball towards the point and extra-cover region. I didn’t expect that coming.”
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He further elaborated, “He came down the track and gave himself a bit of room and hit me for a boundary, he showed his bat and showed his fingers towards the place where he hit the bat. I had completed my follow-through, he said ‘I am going to hit you there next ball’. I just heard him say that I just used a couple of words and went back. I would never want a batsman to dominate me.”
Explaining his revenge, Venkatesh Prasad said, “A lot of thoughts were crossing my mind when I was going back. I had to make a decision. Then I said ‘this is what I have practiced all my life. Bowl in the corridor, don’t give width to the batsman and bowl stump to stump’. And I just backed myself, kept my cool, of course, didn’t really go back to what happened in the previous ball, or what’s going to happen the next ball.”
Meanwhile, recently, former Pakistan captain Waqar Younis said the Pakistan team was left surprised to see Sohail sledging the bowler especially when he was batting well out in the middle.
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Younis had revealed, “To be very honest, we were shocked by the way he [Sohail] was behaving on the field. He was tonking the ball all over the park, why did he need to do that? I guess, the pressure got to him.”
