Former India head Coach Ravi Shastri once has asked all the worried Indian players to join him for an Antakshatri and surprisingly it worked out well. This story happened way back in December 2017 where team India was bundled out for just 112 to lose the first ODI match of the three-match series against Sri Lanka.
After losing to Sri Lanka by 112 runs in the first old at your home ground in Dharamsala players were totally upset and not in a very good mood.
“Everyone be there at the bonfire at 8 pm,” Ravi Shastri had thundered, The Indian Express quoted then Team India manager Sunil Subramaniam as saying the same.
MS Dhoni was singing songs till until 2 in the night
Suranga Lakmal cleaned up India’s top order and ended up with a brilliant figure of 10-0-17-4. He got the better of Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, and Shikhar Dhawan in the series-opening match. Team India was playing without their skipper Virat Kohli as he recently had tied the knot with Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma a couple of weeks earlier from the series opener.
“Suranga Lakmal nondi eduthaan (turned us inside out)”. “Everyone be there at the bonfire at 8 pm,” the coach had thundered, the manager recalls. Players were utterly terrified by Shastri-the tough as nails coach; nonetheless, they were in for a shock when they realised that all they had to do was to play some Antakshari.
“Dhoni was singing old Hindi songs until 2 in the night! And everyone left that place so joyous, the bruise of the loss had gone and everyone knew what was to be done in the future, man management, pa, no one in India is better than Shastri in that. He knows when to say what,” Subramanium added.
In a few days’ time, India went on to thrash Sri-lanka where Rohit Sharma scored a double hundred 208* off 153 and also won the third match comprehensively.
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