Chappell Ki Adalat

India may have had a rather disastrous tour of South Africa but there was no shortage of drama. Sreesanth duel with Nel has become legendary, Ganguly may have fared reasonably well on his comeback but his travails against the short ball were once again laid bare. And what does one say about Sehwag – seeing the number of times he nicked the ball behind the wickets, he might as well have tried playing with the stumps. The chances of finding the middle would definitely have been greater. This begs the question what exactly was the Indian team management planning and what can we expect from this underperforming side in the future?

Well to give you some clue about this enigmatic question, here’s an exclusive sneak peak (captured by the hidden camera) of what the Indian team was up to after the end of the Cape Town Test.

Chappell summons all the players into his room after yet another pathetic showing by the team. The post-mortem begins.

Skipper Rahul Dravid is the first in the firing line.

Chappell: What’s wrong with you man??? Not a single half-century in the series????

RD: Nothing Chaps I decided to concentrate on my captaincy and let Sourav take over the mantle of scoring. We just reversed our roles. You remember how he used to bat when he was the skipper. Captaincy is a tough job. Now I understand why Sourav struggled with the bat during his tenure. Sourav and I share so much in common – debut at Lords together, involvement in 300 run partnerships and what not. How could I have ditched him this time?

Chappell finds Rahul’s explanation satisfactory and lets him go. In comes ex-vice captain Virender Sehwag….

Chappell: Viru do you know your place in the team is in danger? You have got enough experience. You should have batted more responsibly.

Viru: Sir, I did batted responsibility throughout the tour. If you don’t believe me ask Bhajji. He told me that I was responsibility for getting team off to bad start in every match.

Chappell decides he’s had enough and decides that Viru and Harbhajan should take a break and enrol themselves for an English speaking course.

Then comes the turn of Sachin…

Chappell: Sachin you have disappointed big time.

Sachin: I don’t agree sir. I think I have more than exceeded the expectations of people. Before this tour I hadn’t scored even a half century in the whole of 2006 but I did achieve that elusive feat on this tour. Personally, I think I have been a grand success.

An embarrassed Chappell lets Sachin go.

In comes a visibly fired up Sreesanth riding high on his success in the first two Tests.

Chappell: Young man you bowled so well in the J’borg and Durban. What happened at Cape Town?

Sree: Sir, I was actually practising my break dance in the bathroom when I hurt my ankle. So couldn’t bowl that well. And my friend Andre Nel also was injured. So I was feeling very incomplete. How can Jerry succeed without having Tom in the opposition?

Sreesanth is followed by the success story of the Test series with the bat for India and his one time foe Sourav Ganguly.

Chappell: Congrats Sourav you played well but I am disappointed that you did not go on to make a big score. And you still need to work on your technique against the short ball.

Ganguly: I have already sent you an e-mail with a cc to the BCCI President. Please check.

At this moment a visibly worried Chappell stops the tour review and pounces onto his PC in a flash.

What happens next???…we’ll have to wait for the BCCI to leak the mail!!!