“We don’t want anybody to hear those conversations, it’s as simple as that. There’s five days of Test cricket, they can come and watch us there.”
Relations between the Indian team and local media took a downturn when the squad began to arrive in Melbourne on Thursday. Virat Kohli objected to a Nine News crew filming his family on their arrival, and complained vocally to the female reporter at the time.
This incident was followed on Saturday by a press conference involving Ravindra Jadeja where the spinner answered questions only in Hindi.
The media call was cut short before any English questions could be asked because it had started behind schedule and the team bus was due to depart from the ground, according to India’s media manager.
On Sunday, the young fast bowler Akash Deep spoke to media after Indian team training but answered questions in Hindi only. India’s one remaining training session before the Boxing Day Test will be on Tuesday, Christmas Eve.
There is sympathy in the Australian camp for the Indian tourists in the sense that the likes of Kohli and others enjoy their relative anonymity on Australian tours, as distinct from the wall-to-wall fan adoration they experience in India. The sheer size of the team’s following means that most training takes place behind closed doors, and during series, most players spend little time outside of a rigorous pattern of airports, hotels and cricket grounds.
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Australia has been different for the Indian players, but there is a trend towards greater hubbub as the south Asian population grows here. At the same time, CA has gone to every length to sell this series to Indian fans based in Australia and also those travelling from overseas, adding to the sense of greater scrutiny for the tourists.
Press matches are a tradition largely from a bygone era, when cricket media travelled overseas in far larger numbers than the present day and commonly played games.
There have been occasional revivals of the tradition in recent seasons: an Australian media XI played against a New Zealand side in Christchurch earlier this year.
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