Team India faces boycott from media after sending net bowlers for interaction

The love-hate relationship between Team India and the Indian media is well known. The two parties have rarely found themselves on the same page. The frosty relationship is witnessed the best during the ICC tournaments. The 2015 World Cup was not an ideal one for both the parties and the 2019 World Cup has not started on a good note either. In fact, things are looking worse at the moment as the Indian media contingent decided to boycott an interaction session with the team.

The journalists took the decision after India sent net bowlers Deepak Chahar, Avesh Khan and Khaleel Ahmed for the interaction. With only a couple of days left before India’s World Cup campaign to get underway, the media was expecting to talk to coach Ravi Shastri or a senior player or support staff. Generally, the skipper of the team addresses the media before the match-day. However, the team decided to break that trend and the journalists responded to it by boycotting it.

Media manager defends decision

As if sending the net bowlers was not enough, Team India’s media manager also went on to defend the decision, saying that since Chahar and Avesh are going back today (Khaleel is staying back), the team thought that they should get an opportunity to interact with the media.

“Avesh and Chahar will be returning to India. Khaleel will remain with the team. Because these two are going back, we thought of bringing them to the press conference,” said the media manager. “We thought the media might be interested in listening to their experience of being with the squad.”

When asked why no player or support staff was made available, the media manager said that it was done since India haven’t started its World Cup campaign yet. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the media session was not an official one. According to the ICC rules, the captain of the team is required to address the media on the eve of the match. Perhaps this is the reason why the Men in Blue were not so keen on this session.