It may seem pretty pathetic at sight to see India shut shop within 3 odd days every test match, but the ulterior motive eludes us. With matches ending well before 5 days, Australian cricket board and the broadcasters lost several million dollars worth revenue. Indian team's financial condition too wasn't much salubrious since the England tour and as they say, 'If you can't go up, pull the pajamas of the fella who already is'. The Aussies somehow came to know of this through their sinister network of spies consisting of beach life guards and hotel bellboys, decided that enough was enough when they didn't enforce the follow on in the last test. But it was well after the men in blue had a good laugh about it! Result: Indians didn't earn much and Aussies couldn't earn much so a total 'fittoos' !
Australian media is perhaps the most critical media that follows cricket after our good old India TV. I remember, once an aussie newspaper printed a 5 lines long article on Australia's dismal performance at the World Cup '11 on page 13. That immense dressing-down and sound criticism left the poor players hanging their heads in shame. Indians loved that! They expected Ricky Ponting to be dropped and made to live as a fisherman in Tasmania. Too bad the team decided to let him have his last chance! Determined to teach them a lesson, India let Ricky run wild this series, hoping that he crumbles in Australia's next encounter with the mighty Bangladesh and forced to retire. Needless to say, this plan was well supported by Namibia, Ireland and Zimbabwe. India earned a lot of goodwill through this. And after all, as that baba who airs on 2:00 am on MTV says, 'We come to this life to collect as much as good will as we can'. Indian team, who follow him religiously, don't need much encouragement to follow the suit!
Australian hotel owners are wily foxes. They thought that they'd rent out rooms to our players at exorbitant prices and get away with it. After all, with full day matches and practice sessions, players would only turn in to sleep at night, right? But Indians are adept at striking a good deal everytime, and our players did not disappoint. Poor hotel staff were forced to work double shifts! What's more we even carried our coupons from Snapdeal that entitled us to have free Go-Karting sessions per every $500 spent on meals! Now isn't that amazing?! Aussies need to work a lot harder if they want to beat us at our own game. Last heard, they were trying to rope in Monisha Sarabhai (of Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai repute) as a coach to better their performance in this regard!
What's more, Indians squeezed in sight seeing, oratory practice, high jump practice at Perth ,holidaying and also lil bit of cricket on this grueling tour. If that's not multi tasking then RA- One should be given an oscar for the best film. So our team has not let us down in any way, but kept our Indian pride burning furiously! What's more, the series poured some cold water on the school kids wanting to see 'Agnipath' the movie who were wise enough to recognize the analogy. Much to the delight of their parents! So fellas, stop brooding and feel the thunder down under! Get out and enjoy the weekend!
