After the Oval blitz with the bat, Robin Uthappa bowled India to victory this time around. He laughs his heart out at the statement. “Match-winner with the ball, I enjoyed that, for sure,” he says.

Everyone at the ground loved it when Uthappa took a bow each in all directions to soak in the appreciation. He took the crucial third hit and made it 3-0 to virtually clinch it for India — and soon, Shahid Afridi’s miss meant India had defeated Pakistan.

“It wasn’t complicated at all. I just had to hit the stumps,” he says, while pleading not to ask him to pick one of the two as his best. “This was a perfect match for Dhoni to start as captain; a perfect India-Pakistan match that had everything you could ever ask for.”

Earlier in the day, Uthappa’s 50 had given India a fighting chance to shake off an early exit in the group stage and put up a decent score on the board. “Twenty20 is completely different from one-dayers, I didn’t like Twenty20, man,” he says.

India became the second team in the history of Twenty20 International to win by bowl-out as they defeated Pakistan 3-0, after Sreesanth’s sensational last two balls helped India restrict Pakistan to 141 and tie the match.

Both teams were asked to hand out five names and the order in which they would bowl. Was it difficult?

Not really, says the bowling coach. The confidence came from the practice sessions they had. The selection trials had already given Venkatesh Prasad options. “I was very confident when we came to the bowl-out stage. I had to leave out Dhoni from that list, because he was very keen to bowl. Even when we were practising in the break ahead of the bowl-out, all our boys bowled and we were enjoying it. In fact, we have been practising bowl-out ever since the England tour. We divide (the team) into two groups and have competitions in this. So yesterday was just one more competition, with the other batch standing out, also wanting them to win for a change,” he smiles.

Prasad says there’s a bit of science in his selection of the top five. “You see, the idea is to pick guys with the straightest action, as in revolving around the principle of gaining the shortest distance between two points. Sometimes, regular bowlers can get the ball to swing automatically, so I had to take into account even that,” he explains.

“You look at the bowlers I chose. Virender Sehwag hadn’t bowled throughout the match. And Uthappa. Can you believe that?” asks Prasad, excitement of the match still reflecting in his eyes. “Actually Uthappa was the easiest choice for me, he has been consistent in our practice and there was no pressure on him. So it clicked perfectly,” he says.

Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Robin Uthappa bowled to hit the stumps clean, while Yasir Arafat, Umar Gul and Shahid Afridi missed the mark for Pakistan.

There was planning in the order in which India bowled in the bowl-out— and the parameter was confidence.

“Sabse zyaada confident main tha,” says a beaming Sehwag. “Shuruvat toh acchi karni thina hamme,” he says.