Indian seniors try to sort out their feelings

[rkt.india]

A meeting was apparently held yesterday to address allegations of a rift in the Indian team, recent success against Sri Lanka notwithstanding. The following are the minutes of that meeting, presented to ESPNcricinfo by regular Page 2 contributor at large Julian Assange. TEAM INDIA Meeting [Date: 25/02/12] Meeting was called to order at 7:00pm at the Sydney Airport Budget Holiday Inn, in Conference Room C, adjacent to the Poore-Sapp wedding reception in Conference Room B. Quorum was established, whatever that is. Attendees Present: MS Dhoni - Captain Virender Sehwag - Former Captain Gautam Gambhir - Former Captain Sachin Tendulkar - Former Captain, National Treasure Ego - Enough in the room to kill a large mare Also Present: Duncan Fletcher - Future Former Coach of India Frank TJ Muckenfuss - World-renowned corporate team-bonding and success coach GS Walia - Media manager Greg Chappell - Former Captain (Aus), former coach of - wait, what's he doing here? Edward de Bono (aka Edward d'Oh, Hell-no by Indian players) - former captain Bestselling author and professional consultant, author of Six Thinking Hats. Absent Without Leave: Integrity, Solidarity, Pride, "Playing for the nation," love sweet love, etc. Pre-meeting team-bonding activity: A game of Chinese Whispers, conducted by Mr Muckenfuss to illustrate the inherent unreliability of human communication. The sentence "I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit" was whispered into Mr Dhoni's ear and passed on from there, to see how it would mutate. The game was aborted when Mr Sehwag screamed that Mr Chappell had whispered a bad word in his ear. The meeting was then duly convened by Mr Walia, and the team was ready to proceed with business at 7.11pm. Reports: Captain's report presented by: MS Dhoni F*@# not given by: Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag Business: Motion: To agree that Tuesday's fantastic result against Sri Lanka means that the team has moved on from last week's rumours. Vote: Motion disapproved. One in favour (Dhoni), two opposed (Gambhir, Tendulkar), and one wanted to know what happened last week (Sehwag). Motion: To have all the senior players share a table at breakfast together the next morning and share a table, to put on a happy face for the sake of appearances. Vote: Motion disapproved. One in favour (Dhoni), two opposed (Tendulkar and Gambhir) and one asleep (Sehwag). Motion: Have the BCCI bring in a communications expert. Vote: Motion disapproved. Three couldn't understand the question (Tendulkar, Dhoni, Gambhir), and one woke up and asked for tea (Sehwag). Motion: To quickly find a major toothpaste company to endorse the team, so the seniors can appear smiling together in an ad for said toothpaste. Vote: Motion disapproved. One in favour of a whitening toothpaste (Dhoni), two for a herbal variety (Gambhir and Tendulkar), and one abstained for unknown reasons (Sehwag). Motion: To accept that MS Dhoni's insistence on the rotation policy was motivated by sincere desire to promote youth with an eye to the World Cup. Vote: Motion disapproved. One in favour (MS Dhoni), three dissolved in laughter. Motion: To agree that MS Dhoni's figure of the team being cost 20 runs whenever all the seniors played together was actually a generous one. Vote: Motion approved unanimously. Motion: To accept that Gautam Gambhir's opinion that MS Dhoni was playing for himself and leaving chases until too late was not true and/or "taken out of context." Vote: Motion disapproved. One in favour (MS Dhoni), two against (Sehwag and Tendulkar), and one smug (Gambhir). ***Interruption: Meeting interrupted for two seconds, the time it took former captain Sourav Ganguly to barge into the room and, upon registering Greg Chappell's presence in it, do an about-turn.*** Motion: To accept, as a last resort, Greg Chappell's offer of reintroducing himself to Indian cricket at this troubled time, and try once again, for old time's sake, to adopt Edward de Bono's "thinking hats" problem-solving technique. http://www.espncricinfo.com/page2/content/story/555384.html