How India danced through the Caribbean like nobody was watching

After the West Indies failed to qualify for the World Cup, what stopped India from scrapping the one-day series with the island collective? It’s not often, if ever, India swings by to play Nepal, Oman or the United Arab Emirates?

Being played in the Caribbean, the match-timings in India are such that next to nobody is watching. There are no advertisements. The TV telecast is on DD Sports. For OTT, it is free to air on Jio Cinema. It’s a wonder the broadcasters aren’t paying people to watch yet.

In spite of the many drawbacks of this series, the erudite India coach, Rahul Dravid, was quick to pounce on a positive, in an oft-used phrase, ‘dance as if nobody is watching you’. On one team meeting, where the players were gaming or goofing, in a rare show of sternness, he said, “Boys, you have everything to lose here. The West Indies have nothing to lose.”

This hit home and drew everyone’s attention, even Suryakumar Yadav, who was contorting while gaming, drew his head out from between his legs. He even spat out his over-chewed gum that stuck to the back of Kuldeep Yadav’s left shoe.

Dravid continued: You may have heard the phrase, dance as if nobody is watching you? Most players dragged their collective Nooooohhhh – Dravid was undeterred, he explained, the concept of how many bad singers lost their inhibitions singing in the shower as nobody was watching them.

To this, Shardul Thakur asked if they will be adding showers to the nets? Quite a few cracked up, but Dravid took the seemingly silly query and called it a good point.

He then went on to explain how there was very little interest in the series, and literally nobody was watching. Except for Madan Lal, who was on DD duty through the Test series and now Anjum Chopra, who was on for the ODIs, just like a few others. 

Dravid then asked Virat Kohli to explain to the boys. Kohli started to do so with great fervour and some crudity – What Rahul Bhai is saying, when do you perform best, when nobody is watching, right? That is when you can express yourself best…like, say, for those of you who are married on your wedding night…I’m hoping nobody is watching then?

The team cracked up. Even skipper Rohit Sharma who had all but dozed off, swayed his head from side to side, giggling – yeah, yeah, he’s right; obviously, you must perform with the same passion as you do on your wedding night obviously.

This brought the house down. He continued to the youngsters – “Kishan, and all you bachelors out there, don’t think I don’t know what you are all up to – sub apne ko stud mante hain (you all think of yourselves as studs).

Dravid was somewhat embarrassed with the tangent taken but also appreciative, he clapped his hands, “Well explained, Virat and Rohit, you have both spoken from experience… hehe…”.

Kuldeep Yadav stood up and realised what had happened. He muttered, “Someone has put chewing gum on my shoe like nobody was watching”.

The following day in the first ODI, Kuldeep Yadav scalped four wickets off his three overs and thanked SKY’s chewing gum – because of the gum, I was grounded. 

(However plausible this may sound, this is a work of fiction)