Mohali musings: MS Dhoni's googly stumps scribes

Pakistani chacha Bashir Ahmed (right) waves the Indian flag at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali on Saturday.

Mohali: It seems Mahendra Singh Dhoni is still upset with the question that did not go down well with the Indian skipper after the thrilling one-run win over Bangladesh in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Pakistani chacha Bashir Ahmed (right) waves the Indian flag at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali on Saturday. Pic/Harit N Joshi

On Saturday, Dhoni took another dig at the media (photographers and a handful of reporters) who were covering Team India's training session at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium here on the eve of the Australia clash.

Minutes after the team finished playing football, Dhoni asked the media contingent, "cricket kheloge?" (would you like to play cricket?). There was no reaction from any media person so Dhoni shot back: "Agar tum khel sakte, toh tum yahan hote aur hum wahan." (If you could play cricket, you would be on the field while we would where you are). Dhoni's comment left the media puzzled.

Pakistan's chacha turns Indian supporter
With the Pakistan team knocked out of the ICC World T20 on Friday, the famous Pakistani fan Bashir Ahmed, known as Pakistani chacha, turned up at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium here to support the Indian team which will clash against Australia in a knockout match today. Sporting a t-shirt which had MS Dhoni's images and ‘Dhoni miss you' written on it, Ahmed waved the Indian tri-colour, borrowed from Indian fans, in the gallery above the Indian dressing room. So loud were his chants ‘India jeetega' and ‘Love you Dhoni' that the Indian skipper had to request him to keep the volume down.

Jr net bowlers for eves
The Indian women's team may not have had the kind of fruitful practice session as they would have wished for ahead of their crucial clash against West Indies. The net bowlers called to bowl to the batswomen were rookies. Out of the seven bowlers, one was from the U-23 age group, three from the U-19 category while the rest were U-16 bowlers. And none of them have represented Punjab so far.