India, Beware: Australia great urges Gambhir, Kohli, and everyone else to stop hiding and step up

As reported in The West Australia, the WACA, where the Indian team is currently based ahead of their first match in Perth at the Optus Stadium, has been on total lockdown since the team arrived on Tuesday to prepare for the series. The practice area has been completely shielded with black sheets to prevent any public viewing, prompting reporters to resort to using drones to capture images of India's training sessions. Even the venue staff have been prohibited from using their phones outside of designated areas and from filming inside the ground.

Amid the reports implying a rather secret training session in Perth, Healy, speaking to SENQ Breakfast said that India are doing what Australia used to do years back during their overseas tours, and having learnt from that experience, he urged the visitors to open to the public and the media and embrace the whole package of touring a country for a series.

“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 said.

“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.

Despite the reports in Australian media, BCCI categorically denied any secrecy in their training session. In fact, The West, on Thursday reported that the Indian board had allowed them to watch the training session on Wednesday as ample clips on social media emerged. It has also been reported that India will allow journalists to view India's three-day intra-squad match starting Friday at the WACA.

Healy urged India, who head into the series following a 0-3 whitewash at home against New Zealand, to relax and involve themselves in early interactions with fans and the media.

"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.