India's WC Woes Continue

Trinidad - The reporters who attended the press conference of Indian coach Greg Chappell were shocked when the coach stumbled and fell down while indignantly storming out of the room at the end of the conference. They were even more shocked when he started spewing smoke and a speaker fell out of his mouth.

It was later revealed by the witnesses that what they thought to be the coach of Indian cricket team was a robot, which malfunctioned at the end of a particularly emotionally taxing and hard-hitting question-answer session. This revelation throws some light on what many called "scratched-record answers" given by Greg Chappell, as the apparently hastily-prepared robot was found to be programmed to say only phrases like, "That's an inflammatory question", "This is not a time to answer that", "I am not going to comment on that", "We were not good enough" and "The team was under pressure".

But, the reasons behind this "switch" are not clear. Though many attribute this to the depressed Indian coach's reluctance to show his face in public and emotional inability to face the questions, conspiracy theories abound. Based on the new stories coming out of the eve of the Sri Lanka match and the apparent refusal of Chappell to come out on the ground on the match day (which surprised many and at the time was attributed to his nursing an injured finger), some experts are putting the time of the "switch" on the afternoon before the Sri Lanka match. This in their opinion explains the lenient attitude of the coach in the pre-match conference, as well as the controller(/s?)' wish to keep the secret from getting "exposed" in the daylight.

As the rumours that this might be the reason behind India's defeat to Sri Lanka surfaced, the only answer our reporters could get from a call with a metallic-voiced team spokesperson was, "This is an inflammatory question and we are not ready to answer that right now".