Cricket board imposes gag on players

No Indian player - barring only captain Sachin Tendulkar and team manager/coach Madan Lal, will be allowed to speak to the media.

And that is official.

Administrative manager of the Indian side now touring Lanka Ratnakar Shetty clarified that henceforth, all questions relating to cricket would have to be addressed to either Lal or Tendulkar.

Tendulkar in a press briefing clarified that "We have made this decision in order to be able to concentrate on the game. The unsavoury matter concerning me, that appeared in the press (a reference to the story in a Bengal daily in which Tendulkar reportedly blasted the selectors and dubbed the side he was leading as a B-grade team) has disturbed all of us. We do not want to see such matters repeated.

"That however does not mean we want to distance ourselves from the media," the Indian skipper added. "Cricket manager Madan Lal and I will be available at all times, to clarify matters. However, no player will be allowed to talk to the media, national or international. We do not want to discriminate here. The media will be after the players for interviews and special stories, and there is every chance that ideas could be misconstrued. Hence the precaution. We want to give our all to the game."

Well, nothing could be clearer than those words...

Related story: The politics of silence