Over the past three to four days, a lot has happened to Arshdeep Singh. The Pakistani bowler Asif Ali’s catch in the 18th over of the game was dropped, costing the 23-year-old left-arm seamer dearly because Asif nearly ended the match in the following over. In the final over, Arshdeep had remarkable tenacity to come back and eliminate the Pakistani batsman, almost giving India the victory. A few nights later, in the final over with only six to defend, he received the ball once more. This time, Sri Lanka was the adversary.
The seasoned Bhuvneshwar Kumar, just as in the game against Pakistan, gave up runs in the 19th over to make things practically hard in the final over. With only 7 runs needed off of 6 balls, Arshdeep had to deal with Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka and Bhanuka Rajapaksa.
The left-arm seamer struck the bat with a length ball in the fifth delivery after hitting four straight yorkers for five runs, but both India’s wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant and Arshdeep himself missed the stumps as Sri Lanka ran two byes to win the game and all but end India’s hopes of competing in the Asia Cup in 2022.
Arshdeep attempted to make a suggestion to skipper Rohit Sharma in the midst of all this, and Rohit was almost seen turning away. On Twitter, the footage of the event has gone viral. Throughout the course of the game, Rohit, who was obviously under a lot of pressure to get the field right, was seen engaging in lengthy conversations with pretty much all of the bowlers, including Arshdeep. However, on this particular occasion, the Indian captain appeared unprepared to hear what Arshdeep had to say.