Indian cricket's worst-kept secret is out, and remember you read it here first.
Some of the biggest names in Indian cricket have recently been diagnosed with what medics are calling Wimbledonitis -- an irrepressible urge to be at the Wimbledon, especially for the men's competition.
"Wimbledon has become his personal Vaishno Devi," said a family member of one of those cricketers, requesting anonymity.
"It's to him is what Cannes is to Sonam Kapoor. Come July and he wakes up, as if in a trance, takes a shower, puts on his best suit, dangles a tie from his neck and leaves for airport without uttering a word where he is going," she said.
"After a day or two, just when we're on the verge of contacting police, he resurfaces at Wimbledon's Centre Court. We used to panic a lot, but now getting used to it."
BCCI has appointed a leading psychiatrist to look into the case but the mystery rages on.
"I don't want to sound an alarmist but the ailment is spreading like a rumour of salacious nature in a gossip-starved neighbourhood," said Dr Mannjeet Mann, shaking head in disappointment.
"I'm yet to go to the bottom of this but it looks like a Curse of the White and most vulnerable are the recently retired ones.
"Wimbledon's predominantly white dress casts a natural spell on the psyche of the test players. That explains the strong pull they succumb to.
"It's an attraction as strong as the one Odysseus felt passing through the colony of the Sirens who lured sailors with their enchanting music."
Economists have also waded into the topic.
"It's very simple. Considering the food inflation here, it's actually cheaper to fly to London and eat strawberry-and-cream there than buy those here," said one of them.
According to a conspiracy theorist, Wimbledon was merely a ruse.
"The cricketers used it to fly to England and eat Maggi there. Remember, UK's Food Standards Agency has announced it safe," he said.
Dr Mann insisted it would be silly to underestimate the epidemic.
"This year we have had three of them -- Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli at the Royal Box.
"And we have definitive proof now, of how it affects your intellectual faculties. A day after this, Tendulkar found himself lost in an Oxfordshire village and sent frantic SOS to get him out of there.
"It all probably started long back. Remember, tennis elbow didn't exist in India before he developed one."
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