diff --git a/connect.c b/connect.c
index 6afde189a3affdc4e196f506d0f561ac260892a9..568a35f754e41d54dc0e7133bbfaa0d1d02ccb27 100644
--- a/connect.c
+++ b/connect.c
@@ -730,7 +730,7 @@ static void handle_ssh_variant(const char *ssh_command, int is_cmdline,
 		const char **ssh_argv;
 
 		p = xstrdup(ssh_command);
-		if (split_cmdline(p, &ssh_argv)) {
+		if (split_cmdline(p, &ssh_argv) > 0) {
 			variant = basename((char *)ssh_argv[0]);
 			/*
 			 * At this point, variant points into the buffer
diff --git a/t/t5601-clone.sh b/t/t5601-clone.sh
index b52b8acf9859b0084ea10ebf184ed95cafb0b2d8..9c56f771b619e4bb931ce3d34a5f9325b8f61e90 100755
--- a/t/t5601-clone.sh
+++ b/t/t5601-clone.sh
@@ -427,6 +427,12 @@ test_expect_success 'GIT_SSH_VARIANT overrides plink to tortoiseplink' '
 	expect_ssh "-batch -P 123" myhost src
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'clean failure on broken quoting' '
+	test_must_fail \
+		env GIT_SSH_COMMAND="${SQ}plink.exe -v" \
+		git clone "[myhost:123]:src" sq-failure
+'
+
 # Reset the GIT_SSH environment variable for clone tests.
 setup_ssh_wrapper