Cricket's latest joke - how Indians play bouncers
Indian media covering cricket is often just an extension of the maniacal following the sport has in the country.
Not since 2008, however, have they had reason to doubt the national cricket team’s performance under the mercurial Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Two days after India’s humiliation by England in the second Test of the on-going four-Test series, the knives are out.
Indian tabloid Mid-Day carried reports of Indian fans in Nottingham having to endure shameful jibes.
Ex-cricketers at the ground, locals, shopkeepers and fruit vendors are all poking fun at the world champions, with phrases such as, "You guys can't play fast bowling for nuts," "Are you really the world champions”, the paper wrote.
One of the jokes doing the rounds goes: What do you call an Indian playing a bouncer? A duck.
After panning spinner Harbhajan Singh and coach Duncan Fletcher in Day One of the post-mortem, the Indian press allowed some of the games greatest players to lay into the Indian team.
"The Indians are far too vulnerable, they seem to break down against short-pitched bowling. Three of their batsmen played atrocious shots," Shane Warne told Mid-Day. "It was tough to fathom the ugly posture of their body movement whilst facing the short-pitched stuff, it was laughable," added Warne.
The spin legend was amazed that the Indian bowlers could not extract extra bounce and life on the same wicket that saw their English counterparts successfully move the ball. "It didn't pass for a battle between the best two sides in the world. It felt like one superior side against one side struggling to come to terms with itself," said Warne.
England batting great Geoffrey Boycott said: "All of England are laughing at the Indians because their batsmen did not show any courage. It was meek surrender and nothing else. There were times when India played like a minnow side. I got the impression that they are just going through the motions -- and have accepted that England are better."
Pakistan legend Wasim Akram doffed his hat to James Anderson for his spell on Day Four of the Trent Bridge Test.
"The best delivery of the match came from Anderson -- the in-swinging ball that uprooted VVS Laxman's stumps. It was a classic. At that point, it felt like England's bowling attack was much superior to India's" Akram added.
"India can just proceed and admit that they lost to a much better side," he added.
India will have to deal with psychological blows like Tim Bresnan saying how he loved bombarding India's batsmen into submission.
Bresnan bounced out Abhinav Mukund, Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh in the second innings.
The Yorkshire all-rounder was quoted in the Sun as saying: "I enjoyed it, especially Yuvraj.
"I like getting batters jumping and hopping around because often the pitches are too slow. But this one had some pace and bounce."