World Cup 2011: Team India gets into introspection mode

There was a lull in the air as one entered the Indian team hotel here on Monday.

A day after their encounter with England ended in a tie, which many thought India should have won after scoring 338, none of the team members were seen moving around in the hotel till afternoon.

Usually, one can see a few players moving around in the hotel lobby at any given day, but Monday was different.

The team has decided not to train till Tuesday and wanted to give its players the entire Monday to introspect on Sunday’s result. The team had a regular meeting on Monday, where a post-mortem of Sunday’s match was done.

All the players expressed their disappointment during the meeting and it has been learnt that the team management asked them not to discuss about that match with each other any further. Everyone was of the view that it was a great match and that the result is a part and parcel of the game. The players were then asked to mentally prepare themselves for the upcoming matches.

Later in the day, some players attended a launch of a book, which has caricatures of the 15 members of the Indian team. Led by skipper MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Virat Kohli and Piyush Chawla attended the event. While they came for the event, one could see the feeling of disappointment on their faces. But everything changed once they saw their caricatures. The four shared jokes amongst themselves before signing autographs for the select few present.

Though the players seemed disappointed, there was also a sign of relief on their faces, as a loss would have been disastrous for the team’s morale. Harbhajan even admitted that if they had lost Sunday’s game, then one would have seen a ‘fake smile’ on their faces during this function. But, thankfully, that was not to be.

KP dines with Deepika and Siddharth
After the tension-filled game against India on Sunday, England’s Kevin Pietersen chilled out on Monday afternoon by having lunch with actress Deepika Padukone and her boyfriend Siddharth Mallya at the England team hotel. KP had represented Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), the team owned by Siddharth’s dad Vijay.

The three had lunch at the Cubbon Pavilion. Later, KP tweeted about the lunch and also thanked Deepika for picking up the bill.