India’s threat to boycott Brisbane isn’t just because they always lose at the Gabba

Cricket Australia must take its share of responsibility for the stand-off over India’s unwillingness to go to Brisbane for the final Test.

Just because India are the big boys of world cricket does not mean they are always the bad boys as well.

In Australia the public impression of the Indian cricket team threatening not to go to Brisbane for the last Test is that this is a case of the world’s most powerful cricket nation throwing its considerable weight around.

That’s completely true … but it does not mean its concerns are unjustified.

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Australia must take its share of responsibility for the stand-off over the team’s unwillingness to go to Brisbane.

The Indian cricket team poses for a team photograph promoting the McGrath Foundation.

When the decision was made to push ahead with the current schedule of finishing the series with a Sydney-Brisbane double it was obvious one stray banana peel could cause a major stumble.

Once you entered COVID-challenged Sydney the whole suffocating quarantine net was going to be ultra-tight in Sydney and Brisbane.

All the anguish of the Gabba Test quarantine could have been avoided with a simple schedule swap of playing the third Test in Brisbane and then finishing the series in Sydney. Or even playing a second Test in Melbourne.

Brisbane officials such as Queensland Cricket board member and Test great Ian Healy were cheering strongly for Brisbane and Sydney to swap Tests, figuring it would enable the Indians to go from Melbourne to Brisbane under relatively relaxed quarantine conditions before playing under more stringent ones in Sydney.

Indian team head coach Ravi Shastri turned up at the SCG without a mask for training.

Most of the Indian squad have been in a bubble of some sort since mid-August and they are deeply concerned by suggestions they would be confined to their rooms when they were not playing or training in Brisbane, especially after being guaranteed the only hard quarantine they would be subjected to in Australia were the first two weeks of the tour.

You can understand that. For all of the talk of “they get paid a million bucks … just play’’ the bubble life is starting to deeply grind on players’ mental health.

Cricket Australia has told the Indians they will not be room-bound at the team hotel in Brisbane and will be permitted to mix in groups.

But it is understood they want official, in-writing confirmation from the Queensland government given that unlike Sydney the government and not cricket officials will be in charge of quarantine.

The Indian cricket team arriving at the Park Hyatt Melbourne. Picture: Josie Hayden

That should be no problem.

Queensland’s chief heath officer Jeannette Young has already said because the players are mixing on the ground they should be allowed to mix at the hotel.

Is that the end of the issue? Who knows? Indian cricket moves in mysterious ways. Only India knows what India is thinking. And there are many Indias - officials back home are thought to have a different view than the team in Australia on many quarantine issues.

Maybe it is true that part of the reason India don’t want to go to Brisbane is that they never win there.

The unfortunate thing for Australia is they gave India an opportunity to get all grumpy about going to a venue they were never keen to visit in the first place.

Originally published as India’s threat to boycott Brisbane isn’t just because they always lose at the Gabba