Melbourne: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Team India captain, talking about a dressing room unrest sought to quell the speculation with a dash of humour Thursday, saying “Virat Kohli used a knife and he stabbed Shikhar Dhawan. When he recovered, we pushed him out to bat.
Dhoni was replying to a question during pre match press conference when asked if Ravi Shastri indeed had to separate the two batsmen as per reports this past week.
He said “the imaginary stories that came out of dressing room could be made into a movie by Warner brothers.”
The incident in question was the much talked about backing out from batting on the fourth day of the Brisbane Test by Shikhar Dhawan after being hit on the wrist during a net session.
Dhoni had stated that the last-minute shuffling of the order, which required Kohli go ahead of Dhawan, resulted in some unrest in the dressing room.
“These are all stories,” he said on a serious note.
“Stuff like this makes for good reading in tabloid papers
and maybe it helps them sell better. Marvel and Warner Brothers should pick them up and make a movie out of it. I don’t know where such stories come from.”
“If someone from the team has actually said this, it will be interesting if you give us the name of that individual. Because his imagination is really brilliant and he should be working for movie companies and he doesn’t deserve to be in our dressing room because he has created something that hasn’t been there at all,” he added with a dead-pan expression.
The Indian team has received a lot of flak from all quarters, including the Australian captain Steve Smith, in the build-up to the Boxing Day Test for their complaints about poor practice pitches and lack of proper food, besides the ‘dressing room unrest’.
To add to it all, there has been a lot of aggressive banter on the field which paints a disturbing picture of the tour from an Indian perspective, especially in light of the 2-0 lead Australia take into this match.
“There haven’t been any formal complaints from our side so far. I don’t want to comment on Steve Smith’s comments because that will not be appropriate,” said Dhoni.
“But I feel a bit of chirping is good on the field till the time players are not crossing their boundaries irrespective of which side they represent whether Australia or India. That is what makes cricket really interesting and as long as guidelines are followed I am not really bothered.”
(AGENCIES)
