While the liberal establishment, Bollywood starlets and political leaders from the secular camp are frothing at the mouth over the Maharashtra government’s meat ban, the Indian cricket team has come up with a novel way to leverage the ban to its advantage. According to insiders, the Team India think tank has requested the government to extend the meat ban to the month of October as well since it was the month when Mahatma Gandhi was born. Incidentally, 2nd October, Gandhi Jayanthi and the day Sony Max shows Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, also happens to be the date of 1st T 20 match between India and South Africa.

”Mahatma Gandhi was a hero in this part of the world and a proponent of vegetarianism. Keeping meat ban on 2nd October will be just a small way of paying tribute to the great man. Also, the series has been named as Mahatma Gandhi- Nelson Mandela series. It would be ideal if we can have the meat ban for the entire series as both Gandhi and Mandela believed in non-violence. Killing of animals for meat is not what they loved,” the doctor (Ravi Shastri) ordered.

However, this proposal by the Indian think tank is a part of a bigger strategy- to thwart the meat eating South Africans and AB De Villiers in particular. Virat Kohli who shares the RCB dressing room with AB De Villiers during the IPL is thought to be the mastermind behind this evil plan. Virat said, ”People have tried to put various theories for the success of AB and to stop him but all have failed. My theory is that AB’s power lies in meat eating. In the RCB dressing room as well, I hardly saw AB eating salads. If we can somehow make him not eat meat during our series, we can very well control his magic. And this is the best time to try it with the meat ban being the high point of discussion.” R Ashwin has also endorsed the move, saying it will make for a level playing field. “Let them also eat thair sadham (curd rice) like me. Then we’ll see how many 6s they can hit off my bowling,” he quipped.

As this news started to spread, a cat fight broke out on Twitter between the meat loving Sonakshi Sinha and Virat loving Anushka Sharma. Sonam Kapoor chided both for being misogynistic.

On the other hand, Uddhav Thackeray, who sees it as yet another affront on Marathi manoos, has offered to help the South Africans by appointing Mumbai’s dabbawalas to carry meat to the South African dressing room during the series. It remains to be seen what happens when the series begins and, if the meat ban continues, whether the salad eating AB continues to pose a threat.