Psst ... Chappell's got a secret

Infuriating at the best of times, the cricket media has gone completely bananas in recent days with a series of non-stories. First, there was this controversy over whether the BCCI had broken its rules in making Narendra Hirwani a selector. Apparently, the rulebook said the selector should be a former player, retired 10 years. It seems Hirwani was playing cricket after that date. It’s a stupid rule and its breach shouldn’t really bother anyone. Yet, the cricket press went on and on as if it were the biggest infraction since Bodyline.

Second, the “betrayal” of and “secrets” being carried by Greg Chappell became news. The former Indian coach was now adviser to the Australian team and would allegedly “reveal weaknesses”. I’m no Chappell fan but to suggest he is guilty of some sort of deceit or treachery in this case is baloney.

He's a cricket professional and has a right to offer his services where he wants. If his contract with the BCCI didn't stop him from being employed elsewhere and didn't compensate him for a cooling off period, why should we blame him? In any case, what secrets could he be carrying?

Bowlers like Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble and batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid have been playing cricket for aeons. Footage and computer analyses of their game, their strengths and weaknesses, is easily available. True, Chappell can offer some advice – but we should stop behaving like he's got the Watergate tapes in his briefcase.

With the quantum of information, data and visual evidence now available, each cricketer's game is well known to rival teams. Even while selecting the IPL squads, the franchises took recourse to mathematical modelling (on the basis of player data) and television footage. All of it was available in the public domain or could be got from sportscasters for a price. International teams must be working even harder at such background stuff.

It's a far cry from the past and reminds me of an old story from the winter (summer in Australia) of 1980. The Indian cricket team was set to visit Australia and Dennis Lillee and Len Pascoe were confused about what to expect. They had never played a match against India, and Lillee had only bowled to one of the Indians, Sunil Gavaskar, in an Australia versus Rest of the World series in the early 1970s.

The Australian fast bowlers – captained at the time by, as it happens, Greg Chappell – sought out Ray Lindwall, who had bowled to the Indians in the 1947-48 series down under and toured the subcontinent in the 1950s. Lindwall, by then a comfortably retired florist and far from the fearsome bowler he once was, scratched his head and said all he remembered was the Indians in 1948 were a little weak against the ball moving away, outside the off-stump. He apologised that he could be of no further help.

Lillee and Pascoe went home none the wiser. As the Indian innings began on the first morning of the first test match in Sydney, Lillee ran in to bowl and, taking a chance on the basis of Lindwall's fading recollection and throwaway line, tried to get the ball to move away from off. Here's what happened: fifth ball, Gavaskar edges one outside the off stump to Rodney Marsh; India zero for one.

I hope current Australian coach Tim Nielsen's laptop can do half as well as ol' Lindwall's sense of observation!

However, one must credit the Australians for taking this series seriously. With the cancellation of the Champions' Trophy, they had time on their hands and used it well – coming to India early and giving their fairly new team a taste of the conditions here.

This brings us to media goof-up number three. Reporters have detected a conspiracy in Lalit Modi giving the Australians training facilities in Jaipur. Apparently, the rest of the BCCI is angry with him for "allowing" the opposition to prepare better. This is another of those wild theories that floats around when journalists have nothing better to report and need to invent stories.

My sources in the BCCI tell me the anger against and so-called isolation of Modi in the Board is completely exaggerated. That aside, there is something to be learnt from Ricky Ponting and Cricket Australia. When the Indian team toured Australia in 2007, the BCCI drew up an itinerary that gave Kumble's men just one practice game before the first test – this for the toughest tour of them all!

The world's richest Cricket Board was too preoccupied making its team play elsewhere and too busy to send the squad early, perhaps to a sports training facility (and Australia abounds in them). It was not a priority.

I have no idea whether the Rajasthan Cricket Association is charging the Australian team for providing pre-series practice. If they had asked, Cricket Australia would probably have paid. Getting the team ready for a big series would have been seen as more important.

Indian cricket doesn't function like that. That's why we can't understand why the Australians came here so early and why they weren't playing an ODI tournament in Malaysia instead. That's why we're convinced there's some underhand deal between Modi and the Australians, that all is not what it seems.

A cricket culture gets the administrators – and the media – it deserves.