'Dhoni would have hit': Fans troll Rishabh Pant over missed runout chance

Seven runs were needed in the final over. India desperately needed to contain Sri Lanka to stay alive in Asia Cup 2022. For the second match in a row, young left arm quick Arshdeep Singh was tasked with bowling it.

Arshdeep kept things quiet for the first four balls. It boiled down to two runs required of the last two balls. Sri Lanka skipper Dasun Shanaka was on strike. He played and missed a ball that shaped away from him. Even before the ball reached wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant standing back, non-striker Bhanuka Rajapaksa was tearing down the pitch. Pant collected, took quick aim, threw at the stumps. And missed!. Arshdeep on his follow through caught the ball and turned and shied at the non-striker's end. He too missed. Shanaka, who lost his bat by then, came racing back for the second run and dived in before long-off's throw could reach the keeper. Two byes. Sri Lanka home with a ball to spare.

After the match, Pant was trolled by angry Indian fans for missing that runout which could have put Sri Lanka in a tight spot with one ball to spare. "Dhoni would have hit," they tweeted, reminding him of what his idol did in a similar situation a few years ago.


That was in the ICC World T20 in 2016. Bangladesh needed two runs to win of the last ball, and even before Hardik Pandya ran in to bowl, MS Dhoni took his right glove off in preparation for the throw. Pandya bowled outside off, and even before ball beat bat, Mustafizur Rahman was running to the danger end. Dhoni collected, made a quick dash, and whipped off the bails. It was a photo finish and the big screen showed that the senior pro had indeed beaten the younger Mustafizur in the race to the stumps.

Missed you Dhoni, his fans wrote, and for a while after Tuesday night's match against Sri Lanka, the former Indian skipper was trending on Twitter in India.