After the humiliation suffered by the Indian team in Australia where they were beaten black and blue by the Kangaroos in the Border Gavaskar Test Series, they are being criticized by everyone almost everywhere (In Facebook and Twitter). Could a good performance have been practically possible if the same players had been chosen in a proper frame of mind (maybe from somewhere back in time OR having been appropriately mentally conditioned)? Let’s look at the possibilities:
Virender Sehwag – Rewinding his mind back to 26th December 2003 (when he scored a blazing century in Melbourne) before every innings, reminding him repeatedly of his pledge of staying in the crease for at least 50 balls in ODIs (and pleading him to implement it in every test innings) and also making him realize before every test match that it is test not T20.
Gautam Gambhir – Forcing him to watch the videos of his 167 made against New Zealand at Wellington in swinging conditions and also threatening him that nonperformance would lead to his latest upcoming ad (which he seldom gets unlike Mr. Actor Dhoni) being removed from air.
Rahul Dravid – Conditioning his mind to make him believe that Australia is actually England (both are islands coincidentally thus hoping he repeats the exemplary performance he showed there) and also lying to him if he does not score in this series he will be unceremoniously dropped from Test matches as well and thus will be able to retire only after 2-3 years when he makes a comeback in England for the test series due to some youngster going out of form.
Sachin Tendulkar – Reducing the number of centuries scored by Sachin (to 87 perhaps) by conditioning his mind as well as the minds of all cricket fans (temporarily till the landmark is achieved) so that he achieves the landmark without any undue pressure (and significantly reducing the unnecessary overload of Twitter servers with run by run updates) and then goes on to score runs in abundance throughout the series.
Virat Kohli – Showing him the extremely patient innings played by RCB mate AB de Villiers in England in 2008 when he was still establishing himself thus emphasizing the importance of leaving the ball in test matches. Moreover, advising him to verbally curse excessively annoying crowds instead of showing them the finger.
VVS Laxman – Brainwashing VVS’s mind before every innings making him assume that he is actually playing in Durban against South Africa in the second innings OR if it doesn’t work then resetting the match to the 178 against Australia again in Sydney.
MS Dhoni – Yes, of course, refilling Dhoni’s exhausted luck reserves (obviously after back to back World Cup and IPL wins) by adding two test match wins in Australia (the resultant negative luck can easily be used for losses in the next Sri Lanka series in a heavily spinning Colombo track!) and additionally threatening him that loss in the series would automatically issue a bank statement of withdrawing all IPL prize money from his account.
Ravichandran Ashwin - Convincing Ashwin to believe that he is playing in an IPL final (with white being the new IPL dress code), asking him to bowl in four over spells (T20 rules, or else he will come out of the trance guys) and repeatedly showing him spells of world class spinners wreaking havoc even in non-spin friendly tracks (RT @Ashwin There was nothing in the pitch for spinners)
Zaheer Khan – Altering his vision to make every left hander (and even right handers) look like Graeme Smith and nothing else
Ishant Sharma – Conditioning his mind so that his perception of good length changes from short of good length to the actual “good length” which Australian bowlers see and also making him realize that consulting numerologists and changing signatures will not improve his luck unless he bowls a good line and length in the middle.
Umesh Yadav – Nothing, he performed well, brilliant debut series and a good future prospect for India. He should just be reminded to emulate any other fast bowler in the world except Munaf Patel (the IndianMcGrathConvertedFromFastestBowlerAfterOneMatch)