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Simon Katich feels Australian media are just doing their duty by promoting the game.
Virat Kohli having a conversation with the media at the Melbourne airport. (Image: X)
Former Australia cricketer Simon Katich has labeled the media controversies with Indian stars Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja as ‘mind games’, saying the media is doing its job and adding that he didn’t know what the ‘Indians are thinking’.
Katich works as a commentator with Channel 7, which has been at the centre of both controversies. The first issue came when Kohli was left angry at Australian reporters recording his family on their arrival at Melbourne. He had reportedly told them to respect his privacy and not record him without permission.
More recently, on Saturday, Jadeja was accused of only answering the questions of Indian journalists in a press conference and leaving before their Aussie counterparts could chip in. The reported stance from the Indian camp was that Jadeja was getting late to catch his team bus.
“Obviously, there’s been a few things unfolding in the last week or so, that haven’t gone down well at that camp. It’s probably just the mind games being played, given the enormity of this series,” he said. “The media are here to promote the game and I don’t know what the Indians are thinking at the moment. That’s their problem,” Katich said on Channel 7.
Although the series has mostly remained calm on the field, it has continued to boil off the field. Accusations similar to Jadeja were put on pacer Akash Deep after his press conference on Sunday, though he’s said to be only comfortable in Hindi and Bengali.
According to another report, the Indian and Australian media were supposed to play a T20 game against each other on Sunday, but it was cancelled after the Indian media manager pulled out.
Katich, who played 56 Tests, 45 ODIs and 3 T20Is for Australia, has previously worked with Kohli when he was with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s for two years from 2019. In 2021, he was named the assistant coach of SunRisers Hyderabad but resigned not long after due to differences in opinion with the franchise management. He also worked with the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Until recently, he served as the head coach of MI Cape Town in the SA20 league before being replaced by South African Robin Paterson.
