Great call from the skipper to go with Bishnoi at the end: Dravid

No one expects dead rubbers to go down the wire. Also, no one expects them to be heated, with passions flying like eagles over the Chinnaswamy. However, the third T20I between India and Afghanistan etched itself into our memory very strongly for those very reasons. 

So many mini controversies kept on popping up during the game - but India finally clinched the cliffhanger in the second super over. Ahead of the second Super Over, Avesh Khan was seen warming up, but Rohit Sharma handed the ball to Ravi Bishnoi, who did the job for the team.

Was it a strategic call on the part of the Indian unit? Rahul Dravid outrightly refuted that, saying the captain decided to go with gut feel.

"I think Rohit went with his gut. He went with a call,” Dravid said in the post-match press conference. “I think he felt that the spinner had a better chance to take those two wickets. It was one of the games when 11 wasn't probably a huge score, and where you know that if they had batted those six balls with their power, they probably would've gotten the 12 runs. You needed to take two wickets."

"I think it was a great call from the skipper to go with the spinner. He could've gone for two sixes, but I thought Bishnoi was brilliant because he bowled two superb balls. He pulled the length back... if the length had gone slightly fuller, the way they were batting on this small ground, it would've gone for a six. I think it was a good gut call from Rohit to go for the wickets and be more positive rather than probably a safer option that people would've expected."

On the last ball of the first Super Over bowled by Mukesh Kumar, Mohammed Nabi missed the wide yorker by some margin but started running as if his life was dependent on it. Wicket-keeper Sanju Samson collected the ball immediately and threw it toward the stumps, but the ball hit a running Mohammed Nabi on his legs. 

Afghanistan claimed two more runs after that, much to the agony of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, but Nabi clarified that he hadn’t changed the direction of his running - hence, the run was valid. However, for a moment, the behaviour of two senior pros was surprising. When Dravid was quizzed about it, the former Indian skipper stated that it was natural for the passion to take over at times.

"It's fine. It's part of the game. Some frustrations can happen at times, but it is okay. It hit the non-striker, and then it moved, and I think it is fine, you know, you can run for those," "To be honest, in the first T20I, there was an incident where it hit the bat of our batsman (Shubman Gill), and we ran a run as well. I think there's nothing to read into; there's nothing in the rules that stops you from actually running those runs. That's fine. It's part of the game.

"It can happen at the end. I think sometimes, when you play for your country, there's so much passion and emotion. I think it is incredible that even in dead-rubber games, when it gets down to the wire, that competitiveness comes out, that passion comes out.

"As long as it doesn't cross the line... that's why we have match referees and people who are there to look at these things. Sometimes, a little bit of that passion and emotion is really important. It shows that people care. I think as long as it doesn't cross the line, it's great,” the Indian coach added.