NEW DELHI: Former Australian wicket-keeper Ian Healy believes that India are making a mistake by choosing complete privacy, as he believes it can result in an unhappy touring squad.
This is in light of the fact that India has officially started their preparations for the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Perth, reportedly training behind closed doors on Wednesday at the WACA.
To keep people from observing India’s preparations, security personnel covered the exterior of the WACA nets with a black sheet, according to a story in The Sydney Morning Herald.
Additionally, it stated that WACA construction workers were also informed via email that they were not permitted to take pictures or be spotted peeking at training during their breaks.
“During all training sessions, please do not take any photos or videos or fly any drones over the training sessions and please do not sit and watch the sessions,” the masthead quoted the email sent to WACA workers.
“India is now doing in Australia what Australia used to do in India, Pakistan and sometimes Sri Lanka – just not embracing the whole experience and the early media,” Healy told SENQ Breakfast.
“If you sort of open yourself to media opportunities and do them and meet the Australian public and the many Indians that are out here – it goes a long way to a much happier tour. There are extra reasons why India locked themselves away, we just cannot imagine the clambering throng that they have to cope with day in, day out.
“So maybe training is their safe space, and they’ve got to get a fair few things done and they want to do it away from the prying eyes. With social media, cricket in India is 1000 times more serious than in Australia,” he said.
But according to reports, the BCCI emphasized that the team did not give the media or officials at WACA stadium instructions to allow Wednesday’s workout to take place behind closed doors.
A sneak peek video featuring players like Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja, and others sweating out in the nets ahead of the series opener on November 22 was released by the BCCI on Wednesday along with images from India’s first training session.
To ensure that the tour gets off to a good start, Healy advised India to be approachable by the media and fans from the outset. Denying people access, in his opinion, prevents the team from relaxing.
“It’s never worked. The squad just doesn’t relax when you do this, when you lock yourself away the media start turning the screws and the squad just can’t relax. England did it when they opened themselves up, and the next one when they didn’t, and it was an incredible difference in performance. You need to relax your squad and do some early media, then things seem to flow a lot easier in Australia. So, India, just be careful,” Healy said.
