Tensions have continued to bubble between the Indian cricket team and Australian media ahead of Thursday’s crucial Boxing Day Test.
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With the Border-Gavaskar Trophy sitting on a knife’s edge, India star Ravindra Jadeja fronted reporters for a press conference at the MCG on Saturday.
After a half-hour delay in the scheduled media appearance, Jadeja began taking questions from Indian journalists; a process that deviated from the standard procedure this series of first answering questions in English.
Following nine minutes of discussion in Hindi, India’s media manager ended the presser before local reporters could ask anything of Jadeja — despite requests from some in attendance for a response in English.
India’s reasoning for Jadeja’s departure was that he might have otherwise missed the team bus.
Upon Jadeja’s exit, one journalist could he heard telling the media manager the arrangement was “disorganised and hopeless.”
India’s media manager also requested Channel 9 turn off its running camera at the ground, with journalist Trent Kniese heard reminding him that “he’s allowed to film”.
It comes days after an altercation involving Virat Kohli at Melbourne Airport, which saw the superstar batter in an animated conversation with a journalist over the alleged filming of his family and children.
While there is no insinuation it is an issue for press conferences to begin in a language other than English, Sydney Morning Herald writer Tom Decent noted it was highly unusual for no questions to be asked in the host country’s tongue; whether that be by Australian or touring media.
Some reporters have written online that Saturday’s event was for travelling press only, but that claim has since been quashed.
Contrary to reports from some Australian journalists, some Indian media outlets denied allegations of a one-way press conference.
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Subhayan Chakraborty from Rev Sportz was at the presser, later alleging that “Australian media is at it again, and you can call it dark arts”.
Chakraborty stated Australian media “didn’t create a fuss” when fast bowler Harshit Rana spoke to reporters exclusively in Hindi during the first Test”.
“Some of the members of the Australian media were present at the press conference. They misbehaved with the Indian media manager and some of the journalists in a visually aggressive manner. Ideally, their video journalists should not have recorded the private conversation at the MCG despite repeated requests from us,” an Indian journalist told Rev Sportz in the aforementioned article.
SEN cricket commentator Bharat Sundaresan reshared vision of the press conference on X with the caption: “So unnecessary. All of it.”
The fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series kicks off at 10:30am AEDT on Thursday, with the series levelled at 1-1.
