Gilchrist’s book banned in India

New Delhi. Indian government has decided to ban former Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist’s autobiography “True Colors – My Life”. Gilchrist, in his book, had called Sachin Tendulkar a sore loser and had accused cricketers Sourav Ganguly and Harbhajan Singh of chickening out of a test match fearing a defeat on grassy wicket. Indian government’s decision comes after there was widespread criticism of Gilchrist’s remarks, some of which were called babyish.

Indian government decision is also targeted to pinch Gilchrist where it hurts most. As India is the largest market for cricket related activities, the ban on his book might adversely impact its sales. The book had got a lot of free publicity and marketing with Gilly, as Gilchrist is fondly called by his supporters, featuring on many newspapers, magazines, and television reports recently, and was expected to sell like hotcakes.

While BCCI has welcomed Indian government’s decision, Cricket Australia (CA) has termed it as an ‘arm-twisting tactic’ of India. CA has accused that India has been flexing its financial and cricketing muscles way too often these days, and it was not good for international cricket.

But Faking News has learnt that it’s not just public sentiments of cricket lovers in India that has pushed Indian government to take this decision. Some original regional political maneuvering was behind the decision.

Our sources say that intelligence reports had cautioned central government that Raj Thackeray and Mamta Banerjee could launch independent public movements against Gilchrist in support of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly respectively, to salvage Marathi and Bengali pride respectively. Interestingly, Harbhajan Singh was not expected get support from any group as per the classified intelligence reports.

Intelligence reports informed that the leaders were planning to push for various demands such as narco-test of Gilchrist or recovering all the IPL money that was paid to him. Fearing that such populist campaigns could benefit their adversaries electorally, government preempted the move and decided to ban the book. When Faking News tried to contact government officials, they refused to comment on this aspect.

Meanwhile unconfirmed sources say that Adam Gilchrist could be invited to a deliver a guest lecture on Marketing and Promotions at a leading business school of India.