The CouchExpert

 Goutham Chakravarthi

 20 August 2011

In what has been a series that has been played in the right ‘spirit of the game’, England, it was assumed showed great support to the India cause by sending a night watchman in at the fag end of a day where they pummeled close to 400 runs. But, Anderson riled up the Indian high lords by announcing that he had done enough bowling for the series and wanted to bat out the remaining three days and ordered the chickens hiding behind him in the batting order to support him as the senior batting partner in his endeavour to bat out the remaining 18 hours of this Test.

Srikkanth announced that India has summoned Steyn, Morkel and Bollinger into the Indian team based on their IPL performance

Not to be outdone, the Indian chairman of selectors, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, in a radical move announced the replacement of India’s pace-battery in England for the third day’s play with high performing domestic stalwarts. His statement said, “Given the abject performance of the Indian pacers, we have decided to pick a new set of fast bowlers. ECB and the English team are fine by the decision and they laughed off the suggestion saying that replacements cannot be any better than the ones that are here. After a not-so-long deliberation, we have decided to replace Ishant, Sreeshant and R.P. Singh with Rajastan Royals’ Morne Morkel, Deccan Chargers’ Dale Steyn and Chennai Super Kings’ Doug Bollinger. They should arrive in time for start of play on the third day.”

The English press called it “talent poaching” and “highly unethical”. Simon Briggs, covering the press conference for The Telegraph called it “blasphemous” and not even England’s recent poach of the Irish quickie, Boyd Rankin, to play for the English Lions, they claimed, came close to the coup Srikkanth and team have managed to pull off.

To the English uproar, Srikkanth has said, “England have recently poached Rankin of Ireland and made him play for England Lions. If England can pick an Irishman based on his domestic performance for the Lions, so can we!”

England's Irish batsman Morgan could represent India in this Test

Rankin’s former Irish team mate, Eoin Morgan, who happened to be at the press conference to explain why he chickened out and opted for a night watchman was now engulfed in a totally different dilemma post Srikkanth’s statement on Rankin. He wondered, “So, Rankin might get selected into the England Lions side based on his performances for Ireland and Ireland pick him to play against England in the one-dayer based on his England Lions performance. I wonder what’ll happen if I get a hundred batting first for England in that game! Does it mean Ireland will pick me to bat for them when it is their turn to bat?”

When asked for an opinion from Srikkanth on the implications of his decision, he only said, “We might pick even Morgan to bat for us based on his performances for the Kolkata Knight Riders come the fourth day!”

He signed off by saying, “We have ensured that these players will be playing newly selected bowlers for England that they have given me the privilege to pick as a return for the spirit of the game shown by our boys. After careful examination, I have picked these bowlers to play for England based on their county performances: Sreesanth, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha and Murali Kartik. Kartik has been advised to bowl right-arm chinaman.”