MELBOURNE: Australian media stooped to a new low today at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) as they accused Ravindra Jadeja of not answering the questions in English at an interaction. This comes at a time when Cricket Australia is yet to respond to TimesofIndia.com’s request for an interview with Usman Khawaja in Hindi, a language he is very fluent and comfortable with.
Arranged by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for travelling media, around a dozen Indian journalists gathered at the MCG today to speak to Jadeja after his practice and gym session. Not invited, some Australian media outlets, without the accreditation, decided to turn up at the event but they were still accommodated by the Indian cricket board’s media team.
All questions fired to Jadeja during the nearly 10-minute interaction were in Hindi and the all-rounder responded in the same language. The BCCI media manager continued to take questions and even lined up an Australian journalist but the team bus was about to leave and most Indian journalists, lined up, were not able to ask the question. The handful of local journalists decided to lose their cool at BCCI media manager and even directed a cameraman, stationed in the stands, to continue recording the entire conversation.
The entire conversation, which the BCCI media manager termed as “private” and even asked the cameraman to stop filming, was later aired on Australian channels. Not a long time back, the same set of channels did the same when Virat Kohli requested for privacy for his kids at the airport but the conversation was spun into a fiery exchange.
Still not clear whether the journalists today were irked by no question or no response in English. If it was the latter, they could have well used a translation software to get their quotes in the language of their preference. They instead chose to spin a needless controversy.
It now remains to be seen whether Cricket Australia agrees to our request for an interview with Khawaja in Hindi. The story will be updated moment we hear from the communications wing of the Australian cricket board.
