A still from the advertisement. A still from the advertisement.

A popular advertisement aired during the World Cup, which shows a Pakistani fan’s endless wait to beat India at the tournament, came back to bite the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), a day after India’s 95-run loss to Australia in the semifinal.(Full Coverage| Venues | Fixtures)

The calm at the BCCI office was shattered by the constant ringing of the landlines on Friday as fans from Pakistan and Bangladesh — the team India defeated in the quarterfinals — called as many as 200 times to poke fun at India’s exit.

As soon as the staff at the BCCI headquarters would pick up, the callers would sing: “Mauka mauka! Kya hua mauke ka? (What happened to the opportunity)?”

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The callers were alluding to a Star Sports advertisement campaign in which the protagonist, a Pakistani fan, is shown waiting for his team to break the jinx of never having beaten Indian at the World Cup. He is shown growing older with each unsuccessful attempt, but clings to his box of celebratory crackers, hoping for a turnaround.

After India beat Pakistan at the Adelaide Oval in their World Cup opener, the protagonist starts supporting other teams India play in the hope he would be able to celebrate. The background score in the advertisements was a qawwali containing the words ‘mauka mauka’.

VIDEO ‘MAUKA MAUKA’ AD

“The BCCI office number is available on our website. These over-zealous people were simply happy that India lost. They pulled a prank on us but after a point it got really irritating. The advertisement was popular but I didn’t expect it to come back at us like this,” a BCCI staff member said.

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The calls started around 4 pm on Friday. After a point, the BCCI decided to disconnect the lines. “We got the telephone company to trace the origin of these calls. A large number of them were from Bangladesh, while the rest were from Pakistan,” the BCCI staff member added.

Calls to the BCCI landline are usually regarding inquiries about dates of games or availability of match tickets. “This is the first time we have received calls from outside the country to mock the Indian team’s performance,” the staffer said.

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