This really is an interesting situation. In the hours approaching the BCH fork an absolutely massive number of short positions were opened on various bitcoin exchanges, but the price remained steady. I assumed people were shorting in expectation of a crash, but the outlined scenario makes much more sense.
Similarly to the trade outlined in the article, if you already held bitcoin, you could short the equivalent amount and you would still receive bitcoin cash. This trade also had the nice side effect of your exposure to fiat currency staying flat through all the potential fluctuation.