Team India opener KL Rahul, who took an unsuccessful Decision Review System (DRS) against Afghanistan in the Super Four fixture of the ongoing Asia Cup, accepted that he should not have taken the review after he was given out LBW in the 21st over.
Rahul, who played the reverse sweep against Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan, missed the ball completely. “It’s very tricky when you have just one review with you. Obviously, looking back at it, I felt like I shouldn’t have taken the review but at that time, in the middle, I felt like maybe I was struck outside and I wanted to take that chance,” Rahul said at the post-match press conference.
MS Dhoni, who was playing his 200th ODI as a captain, was given out LBW by umpire Gregory Brathwaite on 8 runs off Javed Ahmadi. However, the replay showed that the ball was missing the leg stump.
With the Indian team falling short of a review after the unsuccessful challenge by Rahul, the stand-in skipper had to go back to the pavilion.
Also, Dinesh Karthik got a rough call after he was sent back for 44 runs after a wrong decision from the same umpire.
“Sometimes you can sit back here and review the review you took. We learn with it. The shot I played, the review that I took, I’ll have to go back and maybe if it happens again I’ll be in a better position to know. I don’t think we crumbled. When the ball starts slowing and spinning like that, it is hard for middle order batsmen to come in and get the runs going. I think DK (Dinesh Karthik) played really well and in the end, Jadeja and Deepak put up a decent fight,” Rahul added.
The match finally came to a nail-biting finish, ending up in a draw.
Needing just seven runs off the final over, the Men in Blue scored six runs off the first four balls to level the score. But on the fifth ball, Khan got the better of Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and wrapped up the Indian innings at 252.
