Shane Watson reveals his 'silly' sledge that fired up Wahab Riaz in 2015 World Cup

Australians are always known for their aggressive behavior on the field. Their cricketers usually like ‘banter’ with the opposition to put the other team under pressure. Though there are some players who like it this way, who perform better when challenged. The famous incident between Virat Kohli and Mitchell Johnson is an example, after which the Australian team decided to keep quiet against the Indian captain in his last tour ‘Down Under’.

One more such incident came in the 2015 World Cup when Australian opener Shane Watson was all charged up to face Wahab Riaz, it was an intense game as it was a World Cup quarter-final game, then came one of the most popular and lethal World Cup spells. Pakistani fast bowlers are always known to bowl fast and give the much-needed competition to the non-Asian countries. Watson confessed that he regrets the sledging that happened between them which made the left-hander to go all guns blazing against him.

Wahab Riaz went absolutely crazy: Shane Watson

Watson said that it was one of the most memorable moments of the game for him. Though he also mentioned that it was not at all enjoyable at that point in time, “Wahab Riaz went absolutely crazy, bouncing the living daylights out of me, he bowled super accurate and he kept bouncing me,” Watson said about the World Cup game.

“It was very silly and naive of me that I didn’t realize that Wahab Riaz could bowl that fast. I said something to him – because he kept playing and missing Mitchell Starc – so I ran past him and said, ‘Have you got a hole in your bat? Because you just keep missing the ball.’ And again, I didn’t realize he could bowl that fast so once I got out there, I got absolutely peppered,” he said while answering his fans on his Instagram page.

Wahab’s figures at the end of the game read 9-0-54-2 and that doesn’t do any justice with the outstanding spell he bowled. Watson made an unbeaten 64 off 66 balls which turned out to be very important in Australia’s way to the semi-final. Whenever someone talks about a dangerous spell that made a lot of noise, Wahab’s spell will be right up there.