Arrogant Dhoni plays football with Press

Indian captain M.S. Dhoni kept the media waiting for nearly an hour while sharpening his football skills. And that led to members of the print media skipping the post match press conference on Sunday evening.

On an altogether bad day for Indian batting, further ruined by poor umpiring, skipper Dhoni’s cavalier attitude towards the mandatory media conference made Sunday the worst day in recent times for Team India.

Dhoni has been known to come to press conferences with his lines seemingly well rehearsed and ready to flow, with answers sometimes unrelated to the questions. But the glib skipper himself may have been short of words to explain away another poor batting performance on a Dambulla pitch.

His other sporting pursuit, which is to try out his football skills, did not however go down well with pressmen from his country. Media management may never have been one of BCCI’s strong points. Things hit an all time low when the Indian skipper did not keep up the tradition of the losing captain addressing the media immediately after the prize distribution ceremony.

Curiously, team manager Ranji Biswal was also busy doubling up as the goalkeeper and so was unable to persuade Dhoni to take media queries on apathetic performance. Repeated phone calls from reporters fell on deaf ears. “Five minutes” was the standard reply from Biswal. When the print media finally decided to boycott the conference, the matter was communicated to Biswal who said: “No problem you can go”.

Earlier in the day, spineless batting marked India’s embarrassing eight-wicket loss to Sri Lanka in the tri-series. The win helped Sri Lanka book a place in the final.