Satire Saturday | Virat Kohli and BCCI stop MS Dhoni from announcing retirement on Instagram Live
As sensational as the headline is, in this week’s episode of Satire Saturday, we will be looking at how the trend of Instagram Live has caught the attention of everyone. Yuvraj Singh too has joined the rooster with his own segment on the dreaded platform during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The trend of hosting a live session on Instagram has now become the norm, with it once being something that was rarely used by the celebrities, back in the day, before the COVID-19 virus struck. Ever since the lockdown was imposed, thanks to the limited entertainment that’s available, the Indian cricketers have taken the onus upon themselves to keep the crowd entertained, as it is the first rule of being a cricketer, remember?
And so, it all started with English batsman Kevin Pietersen hosting the Indian vice-captain Rohit Sharma, where they discussed their respective careers. It really caught fire, with Rohit then jumping on the bandwagon hosting his own series, calling several cricketers like Shreyas Iyer and Jasprit Bumrah amongst others.
So much so that it has caught the attention of even the yesteryear stars such as Yuvraj Singh. Catching on the wind, Yuvraj has hosted his own mini talk-segments, where he discusses or at least aims to talk about the various things that are wrong with the modern-day cricketers. Oh sorry, my bad, they also talk about their own historical memories and sometimes there is even the mention of Pentasaurus. Oh, is it too prehistoric?
Well, anyway, whatever the modern-day cricketers can do, Yuvraj can do better, including talking about how Suresh Raina was given more support than himself by MS Dhoni. ‘You know why? Suresh Raina at that time was far better, so yes, you faux-all-rounder, you can just close your 3.5 mm jack’, uttered many a fan, within themselves. There was Yuzvendra Chahal too, everywhere on the Instagram platform, sometimes more than even the owner. And, just when I thought this can’t get any better or worse, Virat Kohli too jumped into the herd-mentality.
However, what separated his live session from the others was probably two things - guests and content. So while all of this was going on, we still did not get any update from any of the cricketers on the sacred life of MS Dhoni. But somehow, we got to know from the insider that MS Dhoni refused to do an Instagram live session with all of them - including Yuvraj. Well, while the reason was different for the others, for Yuvraj, it was pretty straightforward - Mahi preferred Chinna Thala more than him.
And why would Dhoni deny all the requests of being part of Virat Kohli’s live session? That is what triggered and infuriated Kohli, who went to the BCCI and asked them what could possibly be the reason and if Dhoni is up to something. Since Kohli is the skipper of the Indian team and arguably one of the biggest names in Indian cricket, BCCI gave in and revealed what was really happening behind the scenes. It dramatically unfolded right in front of my eyes due to the insider, making it tough to digest. When Kohli walked up to the officials, they immediately informed him that the CSK skipper had plans of announcing retirement on the platform in January. Now, remember this? When Dhoni himself said that we will get to know more about his future in January? We all wondered what would happen, would he announce his retirement, would he announce his return?
The meeting
And then nothing happened, not even a pin dropped in the month, but now, it is May, five months into the new year, and yet there has been no word about Dhoni’s future. Anyway, thanks to our sources, we get to know that the former skipper wishes to announce his retirement on the Instagram platform, which is why he has not been attending any of the shows hosted by the other cricketers. And about January, like always, Dhoni wanted to be ahead of the curve with Instagram live. But why did BCCI stop it? The answer is simple, three letters - TRP. TRP is the sole reason that made BCCI stop the 39-year-old from announcing his retirement.
You may wonder where TRP comes in, but it’s our responsibility to remind you that India were hosting a three-match ODI series against Australia during that window. In January, when ODI cricket had no value, the TRP was anyway set to fall but they could not afford it to reach an all-time low, hence Dhoni was forced to delay his decision.
And BCCI did not inform the skipper Kohli because it would have had a direct effect on the team’s performance, given the CSK skipper’s influence on the media. With the year 2020 already going downwards, Kohli did want another loss to Indian cricket - in the form of Dhoni’s retirement. So, he requested the BCCI to do something about it and called in Rohit Sharma to help them.
At this point, you might wonder why Rohit Sharma is being called and have a few questions of your own, such as - what can he do? Is he going to open the proceedings? Just like for team India, Rohit provides the opening needed for BCCI and Virat Kohli to see which tunnel to progress into to stop the former skipper from announcing his retirement. And the tunnel or people call it as ‘Antilia,’ is where they are heading to. Now, everyone knows what is an Antilia and if you don’t know, I’m sure you are living under a rock called ‘your home.’
Given that BCCI’s headquarters is also incidentally (or not) in Mumbai alongside the Ambani family, they seek help from them. Why would you ask? Well, for a simple reason that Mukesh Ambani’s Jio telecommunications have a direct connection with Facebook in the country. Guess who Facebook owns? Instagram! It is like a food-chain, isn’t it? Instead of lions and tigers, it is social media ruling this animal tree.
And a human on top of this food chain is none other than one of India’s richest men or some say, the richest - Mukesh Ambani. Kohli, Rohit and a member from the BCCI call him up on Zoom and arrange a meeting. In the meeting, Kohli and Rohit plead to Ambani to somehow temporarily block the former Indian skipper’s Instagram account. With help from Ambani, they somehow get hold of it and temporarily suspend Dhoni’s Instagram account, which leaves Kohli relieved.
But just when they thought that everything was under control, with Dhoni not being able to announce his retirement, there was another jolt of news. The CSK skipper took to Twitter to announce what they all thought was his ‘retirement.’ But it turned out that Dhoni was instead planning to take up gaming as his alternate career, with him all geared up to start streaming PUBG-Mobile on YouTube during the lockdown.
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