At the end of the fourth day of the third Test between India and Australia, Jonathan Rose, the visiting team's media manager, was flooded with requests by Indian journalists for player interviews. Australia had just completed a historic win in Nagpur, and everyone wanted a part of the winning cricketers.
"Not now," Rose said. "There are too many things I have to keep track of right now."
One more request and the calm was gone. "Excuse me, but what is the Indian team doing?" he asked.
The answer was: nothing. The Indian team did not have a media manager to speak of. There was a local manager who would turn down requests from the media without even talking to the players. So unless you knew the players personally or had a contract in place beforehand, talking to the Indian cricketers was impossible.
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The Indian media was given good access to the Australian team, but it doesn't look like anyone from the Australian press got anything from the Indian side.
"Oh, do they have a media manager?" asked one Australian journalist. Well, they are supposed to. They certainly had one some tours ago. What happened thereafter is not quite clear. But you can always trust the Board of Control for Cricket in India to ignore such minor details.
Not that having a media manager would have solved all problems, but at least there would have been a proper link between the team and the press.
It was the iron curtain drawn by the team that gave a lot of fuel to rumour and gossip. For two days the media was kept waiting on the status of captain Sourav Ganguly's injury. And when the diagnosis was confirmed, it was in such technical terms that you would need a degree in medicine to understand what was being said.
Compare this with their opponents; Australia came out with a press statement, which was delivered to the press box by Rose, about acting vice-captain Darren Lehmann's torn hamstring the same afternoon and in as many words. Professionalism, in every aspect, is a byword with the Australians.
The Australian press was given fantastic access to their players. Every day they had their group interview with the player who had done well on the day, on the ground. When Australia wrapped up the match on the fourth day, the Australian journalists were put on to more players and also had a chance for exclusives.
Which is fair enough. They had a media manager to look after their needs and give them the best coverage possible while the India board didn't even think of having one.
So what we saw was no one from the Indian team available for comment on the second and third days. You would have thought it was the media's fault that the team hadn't performed well.
Then Sunil Gavaskar would walk on to the field to give his daily analysis to ESPN-STAR Sports. Nothing wrong with that either. We know he has a contract with the channels. But he could have at least been fair to the other media organisations. After all, he's not just a commentator now, he is also the team's batting consultant, appointed officially by the BCCI.
Of course, he, or anyone else, doesn't have to oblige anyone. No one can force them to share a word or thought. But just as the players, coaches and consultants have a job to do, so do the media personnel. Their job is to try and inform the fans, the people who keep the game alive, what is happening with their favourite team.
But the BCCI regularly clamps down on the freedom of the players to speak to the media. So what do we do? The opener's spot seems to be worked out by the anti-incumbency factor; the wicketkeeper is in the team for unfathomable reasons. So can we at least ask the selectors for reasons? No! The BCCI has a code of conduct for them too no speaking to the media.
The reason: the BCCI believes the media create controversy. As if it were the media who conducted the election for the board's presidency, or created the mess about the telecast rights.
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