‘Be careful; the squad just doesn’t relax’: Ian Healy on India’s close-door training session in Perth

Perth, Nov 14 (IANS) As India have officially begun their preparations for the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Perth, reportedly training behind closed doors on Wednesday at the WACA, Australian great Ian Healy thinks that tourists are making a mistake by opting for total privacy as he believes it can create an unhappy touring squad.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald report, security guards covered the outside of the WACA nets with a black tarp to prevent eyes from watching India’s preparations. It also claimed that construction workers at the WACA were even told, via an email, that they weren’t allowed to take photos or be seen catching a peek of training while on break.

“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.

However, the BCCI reportedly clarified that WACA stadium officials and the media were not instructed by the team to let Wednesday’s training take place behind closed doors.

The BCCI itself shared the pictures from India’s first training session on Wednesday while also dropping a sneak peek video in which the likes of Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill, Ravindra Jadeja and others can be seen sweating out in the nets ahead of the series opener on November 22.

Healy urged India to be open to the media and fans early on in order to make sure they start the tour off right. He believes that denying people access means that the team cannot unwind.

“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.

–IANS

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