'I was just snoring. I couldn't be bothered': Shastri's hilarious reply on-air to question about his head coach stint
Ravi Shastri came up with a hilarious remark when he was asked about the TV cameras panning on him whenever Indian players made mistake during the former's stint as head coach.
Team India registered an emphatic 16-run victory over South Africa in the second T20I of the series, thus taking an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series. India posted a strong score of 237/3 in 20 overs after being invited to bat by Temba Bavuma, with all in the top-4 making important contributions. While KL Rahul scored 57, Rohit Sharma also scored a brisk 43 before Suryakumar Yadav took over with an insane 22-ball 61-run innings. Kohli remained unbeaten on 49 while Dinesh Karthik smashed two sixes in the final over to steer India to a mammoth score in Guwahati.
South Africa, however, responded strongly as they reached 221/3 in 20 overs, with David Miller smashing an unbeaten century (106* off 47 balls). It was a rather bizarre start from the Proteas with their captain Bavuma playing out a maiden over against Deepak Chahar and despite Miller's power-hitting and Quinton de Kock's late bloom, the target seemed too high to reach; by the 19th over of the game, the Proteas needed 64 runs to win the match.
Arshdeep Singh bowled the penultimate over of the South African innings and started with a no-ball. On the free hit, De Kock smashed a short-pitched delivery towards deep mid-wicket where he was dropped by Rohit Sharma. It wouldn't have mattered even if Rohit had caught the delivery, but the cameramen couldn't resist panning towards head coach Rahul Dravid and the support staff following the drop. Incidentally, former India head coach Ravi Shastri was on-air during the moment and Murali Kartik took this moment to fire away a rather uncomfortable question towards Shastri.
“Every time something happens, (for example) a fielding lapse, we show the fielding coach, or when something is done wrong by the bowler, the bowling coach. Imagine you being the coach, did you know we were showing you when there was something wrong with the team?” Kartik asked Shastri.
The former India head coach came up with a rather hilarious reply. “I was always snoring,” Shastri said.
“I couldn't be bothered. Television time is good time. I just hoped I wasn't picking my nose or something of that sort,” Shastri further said.
Shastri was India's head coach from 2017 till 2021, and oversaw a tremendous period of Indian cricket, particularly in Test cricket. Under his tenure, India won Test series twice in Australia, and took a 2-1 lead in the five-match Test series in England before the fifth Test was played earlier this year in Rahul Dravid's tenure.
