Published: Sep 10, 2011, 10:25 AM (IST)
Edited: Apr 17, 2014, 04:42 PM (IST)
Please note: This is a humorous piece – pure fiction.
Leading media houses have received at least three e-mails from three different groups, all claiming responsibility for Indian cricket team’s disastrous performance during the ongoing England tour. These groups – Indian Azharuddin, Tusker-e-Jadeja, and Lalitji – all have threatened that the Indian team would become even more miserable and lose further matches even more hopelessly, if their demands were not met immediately.
“Feel fortunate that India is yet to be bowled out below double digits in a single innings,” the e-mail purportedly written by Indian Azharuddin threatened, “Things can get worse, and they will, if the government and the BCCI don’t accept our demands.”
Indian Azharuddin claims to represent veterans of Indian cricket and is demanding removal of coach Duncan Fletcher and a moratorium on hiring any more foreign coaches for team India. The group believes that the whole idea of having a foreign coach was nonsensical and the responsibility should be handed over to some former Indian cricketer.
Within 30 minutes of receipt of this e-mail, which caused orgasmic scenes in the offices of various news organizations soon after, a second e-mail was received from a group calling itself Tusker-e-Jadeja, which also claimed responsibility for team India’s horrible performance.
“Whoever has been injured should never be taken back in the team and they should be permanently replaced with bright young players like Ravindra Jadeja,” the group set forth its demands that totally confused the experts and the sports journalists.
“While the first e-mail failed to explain how the group could be responsible and triggering the disaster in England, this one totally beats the logic,” said a sports journalist with a leading news channel, who appeared as confused as any Indian cricket fan.
The confusion was total and complete when the media houses received the third mail from a group calling itself Lalitji. “Bring back Lalit!” was the demand of this group, which took complete responsibility for whatever was happening to Indian cricket.
“The first one appears to be the work of some angry fan, while the second one certainly appears to be a either a prank or spam mail,” a BCCI official reacted to the e-mails, “But we are inspecting the third e-mail, which we suspect is the work of some extremist organization.”
“That’s ridiculous!” the BCCI official reacted when Faking News asked if the board was willing to take responsibility for the Indian team’s poor performance in England, “We are not responsible; these e-mails prove it.”
(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)
