Media woes

MS Dhoni and Mahela Jayawardene might have endorsed the Manuka Oval after seeing the pitch and ground conditions but the venue, hosting its second-ever ODI after a gap of 16 years, is still woefully short of basic media facilities —one of the requirements under the ICC regulations for grounds hosting international matches.

The press box was a mere seven-seater inside a small hall that lacked Internet, television coverage and even a scorer while an alternate arrangement was made in one of the stands that had just seats to accommodate the large media fraternity from India, Sri Lanka and Australia. Although a separate filing area was provided with a couple of Internet lines, it didn’t allow any viewing of the match—and clearly the requests of the media here to Cricket Australia and local organisers ACT highlighting the lack of reporting facilities fell into deaf ears. Interestingly, when India played a tour game during the Test series, the media faced similar problems and they were brought to the notice of CA and the organisers who promised to rectify them. But things have gone from bad to worse since then.