Of evesdropping and private conversations

There are two ways to look at Greg Chappell’s public dressing down of the team, on the even of the West Indies clash at Ahmedabad. Either, as Rahul Dravid suggested yesterday, the media were unnecessarily “evesdropping into a private conversation” or that Chappell actually wanted the world to know what he was saying.

Dravid didn’t hide his disappointment when asked about the media “blowing up” what Chappell had told the team, telling them about how they “slouch” and “joke” and “loiter” and blah. “It’s a very unfortunate incident when a private conversation between a coach and players were heard and used out of context,” he said. “People obviously haven’t understood what he was saying or what he was trying to say. I’ve played with 7-8 coaches and I haven’t heard anything different. It’s the times that we live in where everything is blown out of proportion. If people want to evesdrop on someone’s private conversation, so be it. That’s not what I would have done.”

But, irrespective of the times you live in, don’t you expect to be overheard when you’re just a few metres from the media? Or maybe the media needed to bring out their earmuffs and silently slink away, starting their own private conversations.