Published: Feb 23, 2011, 11:53 AM (IST)
Edited: Jul 02, 2014, 10:24 PM (IST)
An unnamed Indian cricketer has picked up a hamstring injury and could soon be out of the Cricinfo’s 2011 World Cup Fantasy Cricket tournament, sources say © Getty Images
By Rahul Roushan
Please note: This is a humorous piece – pure fiction.
An unnamed Indian cricketer has picked up a hamstring injury and could soon be out of the Cricinfo’s 2011 World Cup Fantasy Cricket tournament, sources say. While editors at Cricinfo refused to divulge the details, highly-placed sources within the organization suggest it was fast bowler Shantakumaran Sreesanth, who got injured after the opening match between India and Bangladesh.
“Sreesanth was clicked over thousands of times during and after the inaugural match,” Deep Groin, our source at Cricinfo informed, “He might have pulled a muscle or two after being strained due to this excessive clicking by our Fantasy Cricket players.
Sreesanth couldn’t be reached out for his comments over his latest injury.
Deep Groin further explained that the massive amounts of injurious clicks were generated as registered users of the Fantasy Cricket contest rushed to remove Sreesanth from their respective fantasy teams after his performance in the first match.
“He could soon be out of the tournament as not many seem to be eager to pick him in their teams,” our source informed. Only one user, registered with username “indi_commandos”, had not removed Sreesanth from his team till reports last came in.
Deep Groin also revealed that the Cricinfo team was mulling over introducing a “fantasy physio” in the scheme of things to take care of any such injury to another player during the rest of the fantasy tournament. The features and characteristics of such a “fantasy physio” are being debated and finalized.
Meanwhile cricket historians concede that this was the first time when any player had picked up an injury in a fantasy cricket tournament throughout the glorious history of fantasy games.
“Well, we didn’t have much of fantasy cricket during the 1996 World Cup; else Indian fast bowler Manoj Prabhakar might have been the first one,” cricket historian Ramchandra Guha recalled the match against Sri Lanka where Prabhakar was forced to bowl off-spin after getting thrashed all around the Delhi ground.
(Rahul Roushan, is a graduate from IIM Ahmedabad, who goes by the name of “Pagal Patrakar” (that’s “Crazy Journalist” in Hindi). Rahul says for him, “satire is an attempt to point out shortcomings or oddities in our society, ideally with a message and intent for betterment, in a non-hostile manner and without sounding overtly accusative or pontificating.” He is the Managing Editor of www.fakingnews.com from where the above article has been sourced with permission)
