Ravi Shastri missed what appeared to be a clear-cut opportunity to utter a cliché last week, stunning onlookers and plunging himself into a state of deep introspection and existential angst.

"Ravi is understandably in a fragile state of mind at the moment," said Sunil Gavaskar. "We ask that his privacy be respected at this difficult time as he tries to cope with his loss."

Shastri, who has earned himself a special place in

hell the hearts and minds of cricket fans the world over for his endlessly repeated banalities, is said to have locked himself in his Sydney hotel room, and hadn't responded to calls for an interview at the time of writing.

According to witnesses who were present at the time, there had been very little sign that anything was amiss in the events leading up to the disaster.

"He seemed just fine earlier in the day," said Shastri's personal groomer. "In fact, when I asked him if he needed me to trim his hair before he left for his dinner appointment, he said, 'If you're going to flash, flash hard!' which I took to mean a yes. Yeah, he was doing fine."

According to reports, Shastri and Gavaskar then went out to dinner at one of Sydney's exclusive seafood restaurants with friends and colleagues to discuss the day's play and how to better embed BCCI propaganda into their work. Then, tragedy struck.

"Someone at the table noticed a boat racing along the waters outside," said Gavaskar in a quiet voice. "The question was put to Shastri as to how fast he thought the vessel must be travelling. It was an innocent question at the time, but in hindsight I think we all wish it hadn't been asked."

Experts and analysts generally agree that the responses presenting themselves for articulation in the narrow byways of Shastri's ingenuity would have most likely been one of the following, in order of probability: a) "A speed of knots", or b) "Like a tracer bullet". As it transpired, he said neither.

"'Fast,' Gavaskar said, shaking his head sadly as he turned away. "Ravi said the boat was traveling 'fast'."

Harsha Bhogle, who was also present at the time, spoke of the dawning horror at the dinner table. "At first, we didn't think anything of it," said Bhogle. "But as soon as Ravi offered this unexpected description of the boat's speed, a terrible pall descended upon us all. Everyone suddenly stopped talking, Ravi started turning a very bright red, and soon it was quite obvious that something wrong, something terribly wrong, had happened."

"You have to understand, Ravi's a very proud person," he continued. "He's nothing if not the consummate professional, and not many people may know this, but there's a great deal of care and love that goes into what he does. He knows that a lot of people out there depend on him for getting their information in the form of tired, overused phrases. So for a slip-up of such magnitude to have occurred, he's not going to be taking it lightly. Knowing Ravi, he's probably in his room drinking and watching Peter Sellers in The Party, his favorite film. He'll be back with a bang, don't you worry."

The crisis comes at an ironic juncture in Shastri's career, as he is rumoured to be up for the first ever Dead Horse award, for being the first commentator of any sport to flog a cliché 100,000 times. He is currently in first place, with 77,821 cliches uttered, and at the time of writing was expected to reach the unique milestone before you can say bob's your uncle.

Both the Indian and Australian teams have announced that they will be donning black armbands to mark the sad event.