India batsman Robin Uthappa was one of the fortunate cricketers to be part of the inaugural T20 World Cup victory. India had defeated Pakistan in the final over of the match to lift the trophy.
It was a high voltage game and when the equation read 6 to win off four deliveries for Pakistan, the fans from both sides had their heart in mouth. They only had one wicket and Misbah-ul-Haq, who was at strike, attempted a scoop for a boundary.
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Unfortunately, the delivery by Joginder Sharma didn't have enough pace to take it over the head of S Sreesanth standing at fine leg.
Everyone had their eyes on the ball, from players to fans, and it was Ravi Shastri's words, “In the air... Sreesanth takes it. India win!” which made the moment even more special.
Sreesanth managed to take the catch under pressure and India won the match by 5 runs. Misbah couldn't believe and funnily Uthappa too, because as per him Sreesanth was known for dropping sitters.
Speaking about the historic moment on BBC's Doosra Podcast, Robin said, “At the beginning of the over, I was at long-on. I remember Jogi bowling a wide on the first ball and I was like ‘man!’ I was praying. Every ball, from 15th over onwards, I was just praying ‘just get us through’.
“He bowled a wide first ball, and I was like ‘okay, let it not go for a six now’. Then he got hit for a six. And I was like, ‘come on, we can still do this’. Even in that situation, Pakistan had all the momentum going their way, I was backing our team."
Uthappa further added, “Misbah hit a scoop shot, and I saw it going pretty high. I noticed that it wasn’t going really far. Then I saw who the fielder at short fine-leg was, and I saw it was Sreesanth. By that point, within the team, he was known for dropping catches, especially the easiest ones. I have seen him drop absolute sitters.
He went on: “As soon as I saw Sreesanth, I started running towards the wickets, and I started praying ‘please god, let him hold on to this one’. If you look at him taking that catch, you can see that when the ball actually entered his hands, he is looking up there (laughs). So, I still truly believe it was nothing but destiny that won us that World Cup."
