On balance, you can't blame the correspondent for writing as he did -- when you move from five star hotel to media enclosure to airport to five star hotel, you don't have either the time, or the need, to get intimately acquainted with the petty change of the country you happen to be in at the time.

And so, this a quick and painless guide to India's coinage.

At present, we have coins in the following denominations -- 25 paise, 50 paise, one rupee, two rupees and five rupees. Unless you are into pan-chewing or buying a handful of green chillies, you won't find much use for the first two.

Then there is the one rupee coin. As shown below.

And the five rupee coin, as under.

Notice something in common? One side of the coin contains the value. The other, contains an emblem in the form of three lions. Actually, there is a fourth -- the four heads together representing the Four-Fold Way propagated by Buddhism, and made famous by Emperor Ashoka on the eponymous pillar that is one of Delhi's tourist attractions.

No matter what level we play at, we have over years got used to calling the lion's head emblem as 'heads', and the other side as 'tails'.

Now check out the recently issued two rupee coin, which was used for a toss for the first time during the Indore one-dayer:

And tell us, which is heads, and which tails?

Having told us that, tell us this, too -- of what crime ("stealing"??!!) was the Indian captain guilty, when he picked up the coin and asked the match referee which side of it had been designated as heads?

On that occasion, Ganguly asked, "Which is tails, here?" Is that all the provocation that was required, to spin those tales?