The prank was purported to deliver just a few laughs to India’s dressing room forward of a collection towards Pakistan. As a substitute, it left captain Sourav Ganguly so anxious that he was prepared to surrender the captaincy.It occurred on April Idiot’s Day in 2005, a day earlier than India started a one-day collection towards Pakistan in Kochi. With the strain of taking part in their acquainted rivals already constructing, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh determined to play a prank on Ganguly.The 2 got here into the dressing room with faux newspaper clippings carrying made-up statements by which Ganguly had supposedly criticised his teammates for being get together animals, irresponsible and distant.The clippings regarded convincing sufficient to depart Ganguly confused.“Puri staff baithi hui thi (the complete staff was sitting) after we created this drama and determined that we are going to make an April Idiot of Dada. Yuvi began it: ‘Dada, what is that this assertion that you’ve given to the press?’ He instructed him that you’ve referred to as Yuvi get together animal, Harbhajan ko kisi ki padi nahi hai, Ashish Nehra can also be in his personal world and Zaheer Khan additionally events so much,” Harbhajan recalled in an interview with information company PTI.“Dada mentioned ‘when did I say this?’ Then we confirmed these clippings to him and mentioned, ‘What is that this?’,” mentioned the 46-year-old.The prank then acquired assist from two senior members of the staff, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. They’d been introduced into the plan beforehand and performed alongside, making Ganguly imagine the studies had been real.“…we had already spoken to the seniors about this. I instructed Paaji (Tendulkar), ‘Paaji, you inform him’. And he mentioned, ‘Dada, you probably have completed this, that is mistaken’. Rahul Dravid was additionally taking part in alongside, so he additionally mentioned, ‘Dada, this isn’t completed, yaar’. When two senior gamers mentioned that, Dada thought (this have to be real).“He mentioned ‘I swear, I did not do that. I will hand over the captaincy if (it is proved that) I did this’.”The pranksters then took issues additional. Harbhajan and two or three different gamers picked up their baggage and began strolling out of the dressing room.“Whereas he was studying them (the newspaper clips), two or three of us picked up our baggage and began strolling out. Dada got here working after us, saying, ‘Arre yaar, wait, guys! The match is tomorrow. What are you folks doing?”The prank lastly ended when one of many gamers broke character and laughed.“Dada was the sort of captain whom we may idiot that day, however later we felt, ‘Yaar, we have actually put this respectable man by way of it.’ If it had been another captain, he would genuinely have made us decide up our baggage and instructed us, ‘Get out of right here and go residence’.“However he was like an enormous brother,” Harbhajan mentioned with a heat smile as he recalled the captain beneath whom he performed a few of his memorable cricket.
