Dhoni admits he 'forgot about' Pujara

In a show of unexpectedly brutal honesty, Indian captain MS Dhoni has admitted that the reason he didn't pick young Cheteshwar Pujara in the playing XI for the Tests against New Zealand is that he "completely forgot about him".

"Shit! Pujara! How could I forget? Completely slipped my mind! My bad!" said an embarrassed Dhoni, slapping his forehead, in response to a query from a reporter on why the youngster was not played. "Couldn't you have reminded me earlier? Like, before the series started? It's all your fault,"he admonished the flabbergasted reporter, deftly deflecting the uncomfortable question past leg slip for a comfortable single.

"Well, at least Dhoni's being honest," said a stern-looking fellow known only as Nalinikanth. "He could have easily resorted to some blade cliché like 'We need more left-handers for team balance', 'He'll have to wait his turn' or 'How can I drop my CSK team-mate Raina?' This excuse nobody can find fault with - since it's the only logical reason not to select the kid."

However, chairman of selectors K Srikkanth had a different reason to give. "We didn't pick Pujara in the XI because he lacks experience. Of course, he lacks experience because we don't pick him in the XI, so it's unlikely the problem will be solved anytime soon. Neat, eh?"he winked, tossing 22 balls into the crowd and shouting "Catch!"

However, Dhoni manfully shouldered the blame, insisting that it was his own forgetfulness that led to Pujara's exclusion. "You know how we sometimes forget to invite close friends and relatives to our weddings? This is a bit like that. I'll be sure to invite Cheteshwar to my next wedd... er, play him in the next game," he concluded with a charming giggle.

Pujara, in the meantime, seems to have picked up the unsavoury nickname The Nose, because nobody wants to be seen picking him.

Thousands of young people in India are preparing for the upcoming cricket World Cup by gearing up to support their favourite team - Manchester United. The small matter of Manchester United not playing in the tournament doesn't seem to be deterring them - as most of these fans don't seem to believe in the existence of any sport outside of the EPL.

"Manchester United rocks! All other teams and their supporters are co... er, losers," said one energetic young man, bailing out of an offensive rhyme just in time. When questioned further on the weirdness of supporting a football team in a cricket tournament, he replied, "We don't care about cricket. In fact, we don't even care much about football. All we care about is that Man U wins and Chelsea loses." He later admitted that while he knew all the players from the team and had memorised the league table statistics, he couldn't point out the location of Manchester on a map of the United Kingdom.

Indian Chelsea fans are not amused by this, and have mocked their bitter rivals. "Hahahaha, what morons. Supporting Manchester United in the cricket World Cup indeed! We Chelsea fans are far brighter - we'll focus on supporting our boys at a tournament they'll actually participate in, the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil," said a fan, looking eerily similar to the United fan mentioned previously.

While the vast majority of Indian fans, reassuringly, are rooting for India to win the World Cup come February, there are still several thousands who seem to have put their faith in other teams - including Manchester United, Ferrari, A Sharath Kamal, and bizarrely, New Zealand.