Daniel Cherny on what really happened with Ravindra Jadeja’s Hindi press conference

Media dramas involving Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja this week have riled up sections of the Australian media, but DANIEL CHERNY has the details on what really happened.

As the national team of the most popular sport in the most populous country on earth, the Indian cricket side doesn’t need to do too many favours for anyone.

India isn’t actively trying to turn fans away from the game, but nor is there any great compulsion to draw an already adoring public further towards them.

This was laid bare earlier this month when thousands descended on an open and publicised evening training session in Adelaide, creating a stifling atmosphere for Indian players that captain Rohit Sharma described as an invasion of privacy.

It led to a reversal of plans for similar sessions that had been in the pipeline for the respective build-ups to the Brisbane and Sydney Tests.

“There’s five days of Test cricket, they can come and watch us there,” Rohit said when asked about the issue at a press conference after the Adelaide Test, interjecting after the team media manager initially sought to shut down the question.

India fans during watch a training session at the Adelaide Oval. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

In essence, India tends to act on India’s terms.

Such an attitude again came to the fore on Saturday at a press conference for Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja at the MCG.

As has been the case repeatedly throughout the series, the scheduled start time was very loosely enforced.

Jadeja spoke for less than 10 minutes. His English has improved over the years but still defers to Hindi, the language in which all questions at the presser were asked.

This reporter and several other Australian journalists had been keen to ask a question.

The team media manager gestured as though it would be my turn before a halt was called on the basis that Jadeja needed to leave to catch the team bus.

A furore ensued amid claims that Jadeja had refused to answer a question in English.

This was not exactly my read on the situation.

Though a touch frustrating, a translation was easily accessible enough, and I do not believe that India was actively discriminating against Australian journalists, because I and other Australian media have regularly been allowed to ask plenty of questions over the course of the tour.

Such a rubbish report this. I was present at the MCG along with many journalists, Indians and Australians.

This report states Jadeja "refused to answer questions in English" - from when has it become mandatory to answer in English, @Channel7?

When Harshit Rana addressed the…

— Subhayan Chakraborty (@CricSubhayan) December 21, 2024

Several Indian reporters were also denied the chance to ask questions. The BCCI is an equal-opportunity blocker, 1-on-1 interviews are almost unheard of.

It begs the question of what is reasonable in the circumstances. Australian journalists tend to get priortised for questions at press conferences with Aussie players, and it is commonplace for travelling reporters to have their own cordoned off media opportunities on tour.

Similarly I would not expect Travis Head to answer a question in Gujarati the next time Australia plays a match in Ahmedabad.

Segments of the Indian touring party were clearly riled by the way the Jadeja episode was reported, essentially accusing Australian journalists of fabricating parts of the situation, insinuating that the Aussie media had been looking to pick a fight and unsettle the tourists.

There were claims that Australian media was never actually invited to the press conference, which India suggested had been organised primarily to cater for travelling Indian media.

Jasprit Bumrah bowling at an MCG training session. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images.

Perhaps that is the BCCI’s view, but Cricket Australia made Australian media aware of India’s training session and that there would be a talking head presented afterwards.

Doubtless the ground was ripe for such a blaze given this had come two days after Virat Kohli’s heated airport run-in with a Channel 9 reporter, the cricket icon taking exception to what he claimed were camera shots of his children.

I have not sensed an overriding siege mentality within the Indian team per se, and some of their supposed secrecy gets overplayed.

But since the Kohli and Jadeja dramas, some members of the travelling Indian media look to have bought into that mindset.

This culminated on Sunday when some of the Indian staffers and several Indian reporters pulled out of what should have been a friendly cricket game played between media XIs from both countries at Junction Oval, a venue that had been generously hired by CA for the afternoon.

Akash Deep during Sunday’s net session. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images.

As it turned out we still had a bit of fun in the middle of a first-class venue, but it was hard not to leave with at least a tinge of disappointment that it had all come to this.

It was an altogether unfortunate and largely avoidable turn of events.

I look at how the Indian Premier League has brought Australian players much closer to their Indian counterparts but feel that the cultural divides still resonate in other areas of cricket culture. Fans are one such domain, and sadly so too it would appear is the media.

Guarding against another blow-up on Sunday, CA flagged that Indian paceman Akash Deep would only answer questions in Hindi given his limitations with English.

He spoke after training, downplaying concerns over Rohit’s knee after the captain copped a knock in the nets, applying ice in the aftermath.

The BCCI has insisted that Rohit will take questions in English when he does his pre-match press conference later in the week.

Maybe only then will this sorry saga come to an end.

India’s MCG training sessions over the weekend – though not widely publicised – have been open to the public as the venue’s nets are viewable from the concourse outside the ground. And they have gone off without a hitch. The fans came regardless. They always do.

Originally published as Daniel Cherny on what really happened with Ravindra Jadeja’s Hindi press conference