By Qaiser Mohammad Ali
IANS
Dhaka : The Indian cricket board's indifferent attitude towards the media continues, as the national team's administrative manager Surendra Bhave is almost inaccessible to the journalists covering the Bangladesh tour here.
Bhave, who is supposed to coordinate with the media in the absence of a media manager, has not even taken a mobile phone connection, so easily available in here.
With the security around the team tight, both at the hotel and the stadium, the journalists are finding it difficult to contact Bhave – a former first-class player – for basic information.
The journalists got the first taste of the problem when Manoj Tiwari injured his right shoulder two days ago and there was no official communication about it, neither from Bhave nor cricket manager Ravi Shastri.
The information about Tiwari's injury was made available late Tuesday night through the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) press release. But it was too late for the frustrated journalists, most of whom had filed their dispatches by then.
The BCCI's attitude towards the media has always been indifferent. And since there is no media manager travelling with the team here, Bhave was expected to coordinate with the media.
Interestingly, the BCCI has sent a logistics manager with the team, who is sharing the responsibilities of the administrative manager Bhave's.
Last month, the BCCI at a working committee meeting in Mumbai had announced that it would appoint a media manager on a two-year contract. Over a month has passed since but no one knows if the first step has been taken towards appointing one.
The BCCI has a media committee headed by Rajeev Shukla but no one from that panel is here to assist the ever-burgeoning media contingent.