Is culture of silence hurting team's image?

MELBOURNE: It was strange watching security officials shooing away crowds from India's nets sessions on Family Day, when the Melbourne Cricket Ground threw its gates open to the public. It may have been par for the course back home in India, but the Aussie crowds were taken by surprise.

An elderly lady who had come to watch India skipper MS Dhoni was shoved away too. She had arrived with autograph book in hand, a teenaged cricket fan in spirit, and left disgusted, chastened by the experience.

Amid all the pushing and shoving and shouting, the Indian cricketers went about their task with monk-like concentration, oblivious to the melee or choosing not to notice. MS Dhoni was bowling spin on this day, but wasn't as talkative as he usually is while bowling. Did he remember that he played his first match for India on this same day a decade back in Chittagong?

Dhoni is not a numbers man, so maybe that slipped his mind. Was he aware that in these 10 years, he had cocooned himself off from the public eye so successfully that no one really knew who he was?

Does he ever realize, in spite of all the highs as a player that one of his biggest influences as captain, has been to seal the Indian cricket team off behind a wall of silence?

Did he know, as controversy after controversy hit the Indian dressing room and everything from spot-fixing to dressing room 'unrest' seemed de riguer in the public domain that somehow, somewhere, the silence had only fuelled speculation, not quelled it?

One can only guess. Dhoni's relationship with the media hasn't been the greatest, and at times he has been silent when a word or two would have sufficed. The BCCI, and by extension the team, perceives the media as an antagonist, but it is often merely a bridge between the players and the public.

For someone who will go down in history as one of India's most influential cricketers and captains, the now-infamous pre Champions Trophy (2013) press conference, for example, won't be a high point.

At that time, he was grilled about the IPL controversies and had simply smiled back in extremely unsettling fashion. A simple "I can't speak about that" would have sufficed. The Anderson-Jadeja spat in England, which had a disastrous ripple effect, wasn't memorable either.

Here in Australia, his "unrest" remark following the batting collapse at the Gabba sounded like a clue from a treasure-hunt game, a carrot for those fishing for controversy. In fact, the incident should never have left the dressing room at all.

If Dhoni chose to speak about it, why leave it halfway?

Incidentally, captain has been labelled a 'whinger' by the Aussie press, for criticizing practice pitches and blaming `unrest' for on-field mishaps.

Already there are fears that India are again in danger of imploding on the field because of issues outside it -mostly issues of their own creation. The team, which has performed better on this tour so far than it has in recent times away from home, needs to keep it together now more than ever. This is where a captain's role becomes crucial.

Dhoni needs only to look at the Australian team, which handles media and public commitments so professionally it makes for more accessible players and leaves little room for conjecture.

Lately, the Indian team has behaved like it is scared of the public glare. The captain might argue that he and his boys have been gagged by the Indian cricket board. But Dhoni's stature ensures that history will not judge him by what the BCCI told him to do.

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