Why Virat Kohli with Anushka and Ravi Shastri with Nimrat Kaur provide a healing touch to heartbroken fans
For Indian cricket fans, there can't be a better day than Sunday to watch matches. Because that's the day most people don't have to report to work — they can just sit back at home and stay glued to the TV, ensuring roads also get a break from choking congestion.
September 2 was no different.
With India needing to chase down just 245 runs for victory in the fourth of the five-match Test series against England, fans were hopeful (as they always are) they would be treated to a win by late evening.
But in a painful heartbreak for cricket lovers, the team got bowled out for just 184 in the final innings. With the latest debacle, the team also lost the series with England having won three out of the four games already.
Psychologists, psychiatrists and relationship experts will tell you to find distractions if you are suffering from heartbreak. And Indian fans can draw solace from the fact that they are not made to work too hard looking for one. The two men right at the helm of affairs in Indian cricket — captain Virat Kohli and coach Ravishankar Jayadritha Shastri — have ensured people don't let defeat bog them down emotionally for too long by adding some 'lady relief' to the stress of winning — and losing.
While captain Kohli ensures he keeps people entertained, sharing photos with wife Anushka Sharma from wherever the team is touring, Shastri too seems to be making serious efforts to ensure we are not deprived of light fun.
Just when the team's batting squad surrendered before the English bowling attack, in came news that Shastri could be dating Airlift actor Nimrat Kaur.
Though some pessimists say the news is not true because Kaur has categorically denied the 'rumour', some fans know there is no smoke without fire.
It is true that Kaur tweeted some 'fact versus fiction' gyaan, but there is no 'categorical denial' of the alleged affair. The tweet could well be the rumbling of a confused reader thinking aloud if she should read fiction or a book based on facts.
We will know that in due course but in a hurry to forget the pain of the Series loss, fans have taken to believe that the news is indeed true and have drawn links of the secret Shastri-Kaur 'fling' to the now open relationship between Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas.
What stories like this do is ensure that even those not interested in the game played on the field do get to know a thing or two about cricket, drawing from their interest in Bollywood.
Captain Kohli did it when he ensured that wife Anushka figured in Team India's official photo. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) ensured the chance to create a controversy was not lost by tweeting the photo.
For those not in the know, the photo was taken during the official dinner for the team hosted by the High Commission of India in London.
Kohli then kept posting photos with his wife to helpfully let fans know that even if the team wasn't winning, love had won.
Anushka's presence among the spectators in stadiums also helps people forget the stress of being on the losing side and Kohli sending flying kisses in his wife's direction can melt the most defeat-hardened hearts.
Thank God for all the love and the rumours around it, else it would have been difficult to distract oneself from the fact that India was losing one game after the other — so badly, it was embarrassing — to England.
The chorus to remove Shastri from the coaching department and Kohli from captaincy is growing.
Even if it were to happen, the two men would know how to handle the situation, because they seem to have struck a good 'work life' balance.