Hyderabad: Legendary Australia cricketer Matthew Hayden, who was stuck in India after IPL 2021 was suspended at the halfway mark in the face of a bio-bubble burst, slammed international media for criticising the Indian government over its handling of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Annoyed by the bad press on India by the western media, Hayden shared his "perspective" which he said is "not available to those sitting thousands of miles away".
Hayden, who was in India for his IPL commentary commitment, said, "As it (India) battles the alarming spread of the virus, the world media has spared no time in lambasting a country of a whopping 1.4 billion where the sheer numbers make the implementation and success of any public scheme a challenge."
"...bad press that has been hurled at India by those who I am not sure spend any time here to understand India, its people and their myriad challenges," he wrote in a column for the Institute for Australia India Engagement, a think-tank based in Australia.
A fascinated fan of India's cultural diversity, Hydern further asked the media to spare time to understand India before criticising it in this trying time. "India is a rich civilisation which has very few parallels in the world and, in its hour of need, the least we can do is to appreciate its cultural, regional, linguistic, human development and other complexities before passing any judgement on it," he further wrote.
Calling India his spiritual home, Hayden, the Goodwill Ambassador to India for Institute for Australia India Engagement, also expressed his confidence in Indian leaders' ability to run a vast country like India. "I have always had the highest respect for the leaders and public officials who are entrusted with the task of running such a diverse and vast country," he said.
Hayden, who was in Bengaluru before leaving for the Maldives with the Australian contingent, provided data to acknowledge the work undertaken by the government to tackle the second wave, "I am not a data person, but some of the figures I gathered from some of the media reports are astonishing. India has already vaccinated over 160 million people (five times the population of Australia) and has been conducting 1.3 million tests a day. The point I am making is not to overlook the sheer vast numbers and the challenges associated with it."
Meanwhile, the 2003 and 2007 World Cup-winning Australia legend, who has been coming to India since he started playing cricket and then later as a commentator, didn't find any logic behind stopping the IPL. He said it was a "welcome relief" for people as nothing positive was happening around.
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"It’s true, my remuneration is significant and, yes, it pays my family’s bills. More broadly, however, I have a deep connection to Mother India which docks into my life’s mission: To connect people and organisations on purpose and strategy. My purpose in supporting the IPL this season was to provide a welcome relief to the monotony of extended periods of partial or hard lockdown. Every evening from 6.30 pm, cricket lovers, and let me tell you there are a few, went online or turned on the television to watch their favourite franchise battle," said the 49-year-old.
The Australian also slammed media for making cricketers soft targets, as they can't speak up due to their professional obligations.
"Cricket, as so often throughout history, has been and is the silver lining to our COVID cloud. The cricketers, especially in the IPL, have understandably been soft targets of the media and, because of their contractual obligations, cannot defend themselves," said the former cricketer.
