Video: Venkatesh Prasad gives Aamir Sohail a dose of his own medicine

With millions of eyes set firmly on Venkatesh, he produced a peach of a delivery on the very next ball to knock Sohail’s off stump down.

My first vivid cricket memory goes back to the Wills World Cup, 1996, when I started following the game. One particular instance from that tournament that stands out in my memory is from the high-octane India-Pakistan quarter-final match played at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru (then Bangalore), where a spirited-India overcame the arch-rivals in style. That was the first time I saw these two teams play, and even after all these years and many more games between the traditional rivals, that epic match still sits at the top. Nothing, simply nothing comes even remotely closer to the excitement it generated and watching it even today leaves me with goosebumps.

The backdrop

The incident I am talking about is the face-off between Pakistan’s stand-in captain and opener Aamir Sohail and Indian pacer Venkatesh Prasad. To understand what transpired between the two in the middle better, let’s understand how the match had shaped till then. India, batting first, had put up a huge score on the board riding on Navjot Singh Sidhu’s 93 and Ajay Jadeja’s late blast of 25-ball 45. A target of 288 was massive back then when the Twenty20 (T20) had not arrived. So, chasing it in 49 overs, as Pakistan lost an over to slow over rate, was simply out of question.

But when they started their chase, their openers Saeed Anwar and Sohail came out all guns blazing and in virtually no time added 84 runs. Though the local boy Javagal Srinath dismissed a dangerous-looking Anwar (32-ball 48), Sohail continued with his brutal assault on Indian bowlers. The moment was just around the corner.

When it happened

Prasad, who was being booed by a section of crowd despite being a local boy, had salt added to his injury when Sohail came charging at him after hitting him for a four towards cover region. He made gestures with his hand pointing at Prasad and the bat pointing towards the covers, as if he was saying, ‘no matter where or what you bowl, all your deliveries will meet the same fate’. The stadium packed with some 35,000 odd spectators went silent at this moment. The score had raced to 1 for 113 in the 15th over and had doom written all over it for India. Pressure and tension were in the air and Prasad was at the centre of it.

With millions of eyes set firmly on him, he produced a peach of a delivery on the very next ball to knock Sohail’s off stump down. The ball pitched on the off stump left little room for Sohail, who was already committed to play it in the same region and lost his wicket in the process. The wicket infused life into the match as a pumped-up Prasad gave Sohail a piece of his mind (“Go home, you f****** bastard”) and crowd too was back to its deafening best.

The aftermath

Sohail went back with the same arrogance, pointing bat towards a few spectators while returning back to the dressing room. His dismissal triggered a middle-order collapse as both Prasad and another local hero Anil Kumble choked the Pakistani batsmen and got wickets in the process. Old warhorses Salim Malik and Javed Miandad (whose career ended after the game) tried to revive the chase and Rashid Latif belted a few meaty blows towards the end but all went in vain. Pakistan lost by 39 runs and their captain Wasim Akram, who had pulled out of the game minutes before its commencement, was heavily criticised. India, as it happened, went on to lose the semi-final by default after the crowd interrupted the match following India’s dismal performance.

Brief Scores:
India 8 for 287 in 50 overs (Navjot Singh Sidhu 93, Ajay Jadeja 45, Sachin Tendulkar 31; Mushtaq Ahmed 2 for -56, Waqar Younis 2 for -67) bt Pakistan 9 for 248 in 49 overs (Aamir Sohail 55, Saeed Anwar 48, Javed Miandad 38, Saleem Malik 38; Venkatesh Prasad 3 for -45, Anil Kumble 3 for -48) by 39 runs.

(A self-confessed cricket freak, Chinmay Jawalekar is a senior writer with CricLife and CricketCountry. When not writing or following cricket, he loves to read, eat and sleep. He can be followed here @CricfreakTweets)

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