It was a hiding so terrible, that I was prepared to go into hibernation until we played Bangladesh again. But our savior, the BCCI has decided that enough is enough. Taking inspiration from Anna Hazare's fight for independence, the BCCI has decided that we will never be owned by the English as were this time. The No.1 ranking is ours for life. Cue some financial muscle flexing. Followed by an official statement from the ICC.
The ICC has decided to herewith chalk off the results of the recent England - India test series. A 4-0 thrashing will never exist in our record books. India has also been summarily re-instated to the top of the rankings in test cricket. Reasons are:
1) Unsuitable playing conditions
This has nothing to do with the pitch. In fact it deals with the conditions behind the bowler's arm. In keeping with our aim of promoting test cricket, a screaming, chaotic crowd of 5000 people behind the bowler is acceptable. A bunch of geriatrics sitting in crisp tie, blazer and hat does not showcase test cricket as an exciting sport. It also confused the Indian batsmen into thinking that they were attending a lazy Sunday morning brunch, rather than a battle for the No.1 spot. This is also attributed as the sole reason for Suresh Raina languidly played 42 deliveries without scoring and getting out twice. Or the hungrier Virender Sehwag getting out twice in 2 balls, so that he could hit the buffet table out of the park. They simple did not realize that this wasn't a gentle knockabout until food was served.
2) The Englishmen are NOT English
Take away Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Matt Prior, Alastair Cook, Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara. A bunch of South Africans, a couple of Irishmen and an Indian. That's more than half the team down. A cricket team representing England must have wholly English players naturally.
3) Distraction to the point of skullduggery
The England team sheet gave no indication to the sort of players it was sending out. The official complaint from MS Dhoni has been upheld entirely and is reproduced here verbatim.
"We expected a portly 42 year old 'cook' to open the batting. When we saw who came out, we even offered to loan them Yuvraj Singh, who fits the description much better. But they refused. At the fall of the first wicket, there was supposed to be a 'bell', so that we could take a break and shoot some advertisements about making things large. Even then somebody came in to bat. It didn't stop there. When we somehow managed to get over our shock after a couple of hours and get someone else out, we were expecting a frail 90 year old 'trotting' in to bat. What we got instead, was a man who could bat for 90 hours non-stop. It wasn't just restricted to the batting as well. A buxom blonde 'broad' was supposed to open the bowling. And quite frankly, there should have been a graceful 'swann' in the line-up. Not a twitter obsessed nutter, who can turn the ball a mile. And their coach! When I promised Sakshi, I would get her a 'flower' in the evening, I most certainly did not mean to get her a scary looking Zimbabwean!"
Keeping all these reasons in mind, we have decided to re-instate India back to the number 1 spot.
Ravi Shastri has even modified his favorite dialogue on this momentous occasion. "It isn't over even when it's over", he bellowed.
