The Great Indian Collapse

This is an incident that happened during my time in Australia some 5 years back. The cricket super series was being played in Melbourne and I, along with a few friends, had a chance to go meet some Indian players during their practice session at the wonderful 'Telstra Stadium', as it was known during that time.

Now, the fan-following for the Indian cricketers was no where close to what it is back home and we got to meet them one-on-one. We became such good friends that the players actually offered a few of us to pad up and have a go at batting, against some of the local Aussie bowlers who had turned up. So, we borrowed a few pads, bats and gloves, decked up like Indian batsmen, and went into the nets.

First, my friend took strike to a Aussie fast bowler and swung his bat, only to find his middle stump uprooted. He got another chance to bat. Again he swung and skied the ball so high that a fielder came right under and took a simple catch. It was my chance next, and being the amazing batsman that I am, I actually got bowled 4 times and caught 2 times in 10 balls that I faced.

It was embarrassing for us, but we didn't mind. We were not great batsmen like the ones who play for India. But, we jokingly went up to them, gave them all a bottle of Pepsi and said:
"2011 World Cup ke match mein, South Africa ke khilaaf aisa hi karna!!"

Little did we know that they would take our joke so seriously!!

What was worse, was to learn that they are now being paid millions of dollars for saying:
"Pepsi presents.....The Great Indian Collapse!!"

[P.S: For those who are actually wondering......it's obviously a fictional story!!]

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