Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
I had planned to watch a silly comedy on DVD, when thanks to some good fortune I happened to be switching TV channels. There was a heated discussion going on between animated retired cricket stars on the "nudging" of BCCI President Sharad Pawar by the brusque Australians celebrating champion-hood in practically all news stations, when suddenly popped another breaking news story; apparently the Rawalpindi Express had let off severe steam and then promptly rolled into the Pakistan team coach Bob Woolmer , giving his pink cheeks a resounding slap that reverberated all the way to Karachi via New Delhi.
The whole scenario seemed so bizarre and outrageous that I involuntarily dropped plans to watch Jim Carrey make funny faces. Just when we thought we could take a brief siesta post the monotonous Champions Trophy, there was some new unintended, hilarious commotion to cover. Continue reading below
At the time of writing, the situation is to use the classic cliché, “tense but under control. ”The mystery man who blew the whistle or in this case the trumpet, is one Col Anil Kaul (superannuated), who in paroxysms of verbal diarrhea and the incandescent lights of TV cameras, has given the cricketing world some more “mirchi masala” (chillies and spices) to chew.
If we are to believe Retd Col Kaul, then this is the brief summary of findings:
1) The Indian music directors will be extremely upset with him as Bob Woolmer preferred some Britney Spears or some such western chart-buster over Shoaib Akhtar’s Bollywood favorite. (We haven’t yet uncovered the precious song, which has caused this unparalleled dispute).
2) Woolmer seemingly made snide remarks about the local song, making him liable to be sued by the music director. Akhtar has already got an Indian national sympathy wave roaring like a hurricane in his favor.
3) While the PCB has denied the famous “slap”, other forms of physical proximity culminating in a not-so-humane-interaction cannot be completely ruled out.
4) While the concerned hotel in Jaipur has denied that Akhtar misbehaved with a woman in a discotheque, according to new celebrity Kaul, Shoaib perhaps demonstrated reconciliation with the harassed soul in the dance bar thinking it was Bob.
5) Akhtar being Akhtar did not stop there, but proceeded to knock mistakenly on of all the person’s Greg Chappell’s door at the midnight-hour, and even mistook him for being Mandira Bedi. Clearly, Akhtar needed some desperate anti-dote for that lethal lapse in mistaken identity.
6) Now here, the conspiracy theory takes over with kingly supremacy. Kaul hints that as a vicious revenge-seeking retaliatory strategy, Woolmer pulled out his trump card, the doping report findings, almost like an auctioneer’s hammer. Attention! Attention!
Promptly, Akhtar and non-English speaking Mohd Asif were on the Jaipur-Delhi expressway racing at 100 kmph. The South Africans thrash a beleaguered and enervated Pakistani team ruthlessly and the rest is history.
7) BCCI states with cool composure that it was ICC which recruited Kaul as a security assistant (he could not prevent the slap, unfortunately, despite his commando skills). ICC says that it never gave him media spokesperson rights as CEO Malcolm Speed had appropriated full charge, brokering the Brotherhood of Man in the interim with India’s Lalit Modi.
There is only serious question hanging loosely unanswered in this crazy-funny rib tickling soap-opera. If it is established that Akhtar’s doping report did dramatically emerge from wooden closets following the romantic rendezvous in the team-bus; then does it mean that the report was being deliberately concealed by both Woolmer and the Pakistan Cricket Board till then?
Your guess is as good as mine!
