“MS said just go bowl bro”, Robin Uthappa recalls interesting incident involving Dhoni and Sreesanth

Out of favour batsman Robin Uthappa recalled an interesting incident from the winter of 2007 when Australia visited India for a limited-overs series. Uthappa reminisced of a funny conversation between the then India captain MS Dhoni and fast bowler S Sreesanth during an ODI played in Kochi. The incident saw Sreesanth appeal for a run-out […]
 
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“MS said just go bowl bro”, Robin Uthappa recalls interesting incident involving Dhoni and Sreesanth

Out of favour batsman Robin Uthappa recalled an interesting incident from the winter of 2007 when Australia visited India for a limited-overs series.

Uthappa reminisced of a funny conversation between the then India captain MS Dhoni and fast bowler S Sreesanth during an ODI played in Kochi.

The incident saw Sreesanth appeal for a run-out at the non-striker’s end, presuming that Australian middle-order batsman Andrew Symonds had backed up a touch too far.

As Sreesanth pushed his case with the on-field umpire, Dhoni, who was alert to the situation, went up to his bowler and told him no uncertain terms to just go back to his mark and resume bowling.

Also Read: Happy To See Sreesanth Make A Comeback: Sachin Baby

“MS said just go bowl bro”, Robin Uthappa recalls interesting incident involving Dhoni and Sreesanth

“MS said just go bowl bro”, Robin Uthappa recalls interesting incident involving Dhoni and Sreesanth

“It was just after the World Cup, and we were playing Australia in Kochi,” Uthappa told stand-up comedian Sorabh Pant on his YouTube show ‘Wake Up With Sorabh’.

“And I think it was either Andrew Symonds or Hussey who had backed up. And then Sree (Sreesanth) stopped, took the stumps off and goes ‘How is that? How is that?'”

“So MS came running from there, pulled him and said ‘just go bowl bro’. Someone who actually handled him really well was MS,” he added.

 

“MS said just go bowl bro”, Robin Uthappa recalls interesting incident involving Dhoni and S Sreesanth

It was Sreesanth only who dismissed his man Symonds in the later stages of the innings with a caught and bowled. But by then, the in-form Aussie batsman has piled on 87 runs off 83 balls and set his team on its way to a daunting score of 306/6. India eventually lost the match by a big margin of 84 runs and handed Australia a 1-0 lead in the series.

That seven-match ODI series remains famous for quite a few verbal altercations involving Sreesanth and Symonds, who won the battle on the field by finishing on top of the run-charts with 365 runs at an average of 73.00 and strike-rate of 110.60. Symonds was key to Australia winning the series 4-2, with a no-result fixture in Bangalore.

Uthappa, meanwhile, narrated another incident involving S Sreesanth from the 2007 T20 World Cup final in South Africa. In an unforgettable moment for all Indian fans, Sreesanth took the grab of Misbah-ul-Haq’s willow as he went about scooping medium-pacer Joginder Sharma but ended up skying the ball up, with Pakistan nine wickets down, needing 6 runs off 4 balls in the last over.

Uthappa, who was standing at long-on, remembers a mix of emotions he was going through as he saw the ball in the air and noticed Sreesanth standing beneath it at fine leg.

“I was standing at long on. So many things happened during that match. When that ball went in the air, my first thought was ‘ok, who is at short fine leg?’. And when I saw it’s Sree, I started sprinting and I was praying ‘Please pull us through.’ Because again, you don’t lose a World Cup final to Pakistan. There’s just something that we always get the better of them in a World Cup,” Uthappa said, with Sreesanth’s catch completing India’s win and transforming the game forever.