The quarter-finals of 2015 ODI World Cup saw hosts Australia at loggerheads with the unpredictable Pakistan side.
Batting first, Pakistan were in all sorts of trouble, finding it difficult to cope up with the pace of Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc on a juicy Adelaide pitch.
So much so that pinch-hitter Wahab Riaz had to walk in to bite the bullet against firm-favourites and the eventual winners of the tournament.
During his volatile stay at the crease, Riaz was finding it challenging to meet the ball with his willow. To which, the Australian close-in fielders with their sledges swarmed in to build a pressure-cookers situation for the Pakistani pacer.
One of the comments made from Shane Watson at slips fired up Riaz. ‘Are you holding a bat?’ asked Watson obeying the renowned Aussie culture of sledging.
However, the left-arm fast bowler got his revenge by bowling one of the great spells in World Cup cricket. Watson received a dose of his own medicine when Riaz sledged him back during his long follow-throughs.
Riaz gave the Aussie all-rounder a mouthful as he found it a hard task to survive an unplayable spell. Had Rahat Ali not dropped the catch, Watson would have been back to the pavilion.
“When he came into bat, I settled the score with him. When I was batting Watson just came up to me and said ‘are you holding a bat?’ and that was going through my mind,” Riaz was quoted as saying by Indian Today.
“I let him know that even he had a bat, but he couldn’t touch the ball,” added Riaz. Watto then steered Australia to a comfortable win as the hosts progressed to the semi-finals.
