I entered the office as quietly as I could, suppressing my heavy breathing that was caused by climbing four floors. Sitting with a perturbed face with earphones on in front of the laptop, he looked up at me and signalled me to sit. 

Sitting clueless in front of him, I kept staring at him blankly. It took some time but he understood I needed to be caught up with things. With a disgusted look on his face, one that a boss gives to his worthless employee, he turned the laptop towards me.

“You look so confused, why?” asked my boss.

“Either Shastri is watching a lot of Jose Mourinho interviews, or it’s vice versa. But, either way, this is not apparently a sign of madness. Failing managers tend to use this mechanism very often,” I said. 

I obeyed his order and in no time heard Shastri blabbering, “If you look at the last three years, we won nine matches overseas and three series. I can't see any other Indian team in the last 15-20 years who had that kind of run in such a short period and you have some great players in those teams."

I looked up at my boss. “Yes, he is talking about the wins against West Indies and Sri Lanka out of India,” he said understanding my plight.

London was cold with 22 degrees and a nippy wind blowing continuously. I made my way to the team hotel as desperately as I could and sat on the cozy couch at the reception. The warmth inside was heavenly and I almost felt like taking a power nap when I saw KL Rahul passing by me setting his spikes straight using his front camera. I dropped everything and pursued him.

He was ready to speak at once, contrary to what I was expecting. “See, I think I have proved my credentials already in IPL first and now here too. I read in tabloids that my game against in-swinging deliveries is weak and I am working on that to improving it,” said a smiling Rahul, while going through his Instagram comments.

But a distracted Rahul kept staring at the floor before saying, “The coach says we are not on the same mental plane yet, him and me. Before every innings, he comes in and says I am the best out there and no bowler can dismiss me. When I ask about the specifics, he tells me to listen to my gut. I try to do that, but I guess things will take the time it takes.”

I was going to ask if Shastri ever speaks to him about batting techniques but thinking that he had spilled too much of dressing room tactics, Rahul left hastily stating, “Anyway, see ya… I have to go for strength training.”

I entered into a messy room with him standing in front of the mirror with a shady T-shirt and towel. “Keep it there,” said Pandya pointing towards the table as he was blowing his hair. 

I stood transfixed there thinking what to say when he turned to pick his charcoal peel off face mask cream. Realizing I wasn’t a hotel attendant, he asked, “You are?”

“Where is the cameraman? Have you recorded anything yet? How did you enter here without any appointment?,” asked Pandya, clearly nervous about something I didn’t understand.

“No, Sir. No cameras. Just me. I was looking for a selfie and some questions. I’m very sorry you were startled,” I said to limit the damage already done. Pandya agreed to speak for five minutes and asked me to wait.

“People compare you to Kapil Dev and even to modern great Jacques Kallis at times. But, every time you’ve had a bad day in the field, the same people have criticized you. What is your take on it?” I asked expecting an annoying answer.

Pandya had turned his swag mode on. He wasn’t looking at me and started answering with his head down and fingers scrolling his mobile. 20 seconds had passed and Pandya didn’t respond. I cleared my throat hinting him that it was his turn to answer.

It sounded impressive and I noted it down and followed it up with his latest failure to bring his team home in the fourth Test. “The last Test in Southampton was the second time in the series where the team had a pretty much clear chance to win it, but it faltered. What do you think is going wrong?”

A similar brief silence succeeded my question before Pandya replied, “Well, I believe that you're going to struggle. You're going to do well. You can't really let the past or the day before - whether you had a good day or bad day - dictate the day you have that certain day.”

“Hold on. So, it’s like… If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences,” he said and looked up at me.

I couldn’t stop my giggle and asked for my leave. “Did you note it down? You forgot the selfie,” said Pandya getting up from the couch. I nodded, took the selfie, and left the room. It took me some time to realize Pandya was reading up from Brainy Quotes.

“What’s the matter? I heard someone screaming. Did you see anything? Tell me or I register a complaint in your name at the main desk,” I asked with full rigour and seriousness.

The English bloke looked shaky from beforehand and spilled out everything at once. “I don’t exactly know what was going on. I just saw Virat sir shouting at Shastri and throwing things at him. They were speaking in Hindi and the only phrase I understood was Virat sir screaming, “How could you?”

I had enough content for a report and I wanted to leave soon but I had lost my way by then. Trying to find the elevator, a room with a metal door caught my notice, more so for it was written Ravi Shastri on the stand near it. My greedy self was too tempting to control and I found myself standing right in front of the door within seconds, contemplating my next move.

But, before I could think of anything I was caught on the wrong foot by the outcoming Sanjay Bangar and Bharat Arun. The latter was heard complaining to Bangar, “How could he do this to us?? After all these years? 

Bangar and Arun looked at each other and took me to another room. I showed them the clip from India TV where Ganguly was seen stating, “Rahul Dravid had been asked to become a batting consultant and he had even agreed. But then he spoke to Ravi and I don’t know what happened after that. The Committee of Administrators also had added to the confusion with the coach selection and we were tired and just got out of it… We made no statements on Zaheer Khan or Rahul Dravid’s appointments. Our job was to select the head coach through the due process.”

Both of them were fuming after watching this and I was surprised they hadn’t already seen it. With a very soft voice, I asked, “What’s your response to it Sir?”

I turned towards Arun, waiting for a fiery response. But, instead of a response, he took me to the room with the steel door, and what I saw there was unthinkable. There were at least 10-12 laptops kept open in various places of the room and every one of them had people speaking in press-conferences. One was showing Alastair Cook speaking on his retirement, while the other three was showing NFL managers speaking with gestures. My initial guess, Jose Mourinho was also seen speaking in one of the laptops.

However, I was still clueless about their purpose. In place of highlights of the Indian batting form recent Tests Shastri looked busy with something totally different. “Ravi has been obsessed about only one thing - to give the best press conference in the world. He takes notes from all of them and to come up with comebacks after matches. He is shrewd in front of the camera and can turn any situation into a blame game. If we are going out, we will make sure his secret is spilled,” said a calm but saddened Arun.