The stump-mic has been the 12th man of the Australia-India Test series so far. But has it been overexposed, at the risk of being too intrusive? On Tuesday, reports emerged in the Australian media revealing the contents of the verbal spat between Ishant Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja.
The footage of the exchange between the two Indian players that transpired on the fourth day of the second Test had been shown by both the host broadcasters on their networks. Though Channel Seven didn't broadcast the audio of the spat, it started doing the rounds late on Tuesday (December 18).
A day earlier, the entire chatter between the two captains, Virat Kohli and Tim Paine, was played out with umpire Chris Gaffaney playing a brief cameo as the mediator, on Fox Sports. Fox have also introduced a new segment called "Listening in" generally when a spinner is in action and the wicket-keeper and the slips are standing at or closer to the stumps. It's when the commentators on air are asked to not say anything and you hear only the direct feed from the stump camera microphone, which is turned to full volume. It's in lieu of this segment that Indian wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant has developed a so-called cult following based on his words of encouragement to the spinners, and to Pat Cummins in particular in Adelaide. Though amusing to some, this level of intense prying where every conversation between players in the middle gets exposed to the public sphere can be a case for concern.
There was a time the stump-mic in Australia would be limited to giving out unique sounds of balls crashing into stumps and of batsmen moving around in their crease, which often became the background theme of cricket Down Under for the romantics anyway. What transpired between players would rarely make it out, maybe also because the technology wasn't as advanced or the directors were perhaps more sensitive. But have the broadcasters gone a bit too far in recent times in trying to bring the audience too close to the action in the middle.
It does make for entertaining viewing at times. Take MS Dhoni's words of advice for his spinners or his witty taunts to his own players. Or for that matter Kumar Sangakkara's non-abusive banter with Shaun Pollock from many years ago. But is it prudent for a broadcaster to go looking for an exchange between two opposition players in the heat of the battle? Or in the case of Jadeja and Ishant, two teammates in the heat of the battle.
For let's face it, both Jadeja and Ishant were in the heat of the battle and boiling under the extreme Perth sun when they let their tempers flare. Jadeja, who's played one Test on three away tours this year, had been substitute for lengthy periods across both innings here and in Adelaide. Ishant, meanwhile, had run in all day long and beat the bat and was understandably hot in the head at that point. So whatever it was that set them off, you couldn't blame them for getting a little angsty with each other. Someone somewhere is losing their cool in his or her workplace on a daily basis after all.
If anything, Ishant and Jadeja should be pulled up by the Indian team management for having their little tiff so close to the stump camera, but in the clip it is obvious to see that the two make an effort to move away from the pitch square. The question is whether is it the broadcasters prerogative to relay every tete a tete that players indulge in with each other during the course of an intense international match.
Australia are no strangers for heightened scrutiny on an away tour. If it wasn't the microscopic zeroing in on their antics during the South Africa series, the whole sandpaper fiasco is unlikely to have seen the light of day. That in many circles was looked at as retaliation for the heightened scrutiny South African captain Faf du Plessis had endured during his lozenge fiasco a year earlier in Australia.
You just have to look at how no team has ever been caught tampering or altering the state of the ball in their own backyard since Michael Atherton was caught with "dirt in his pockets" at Lord's of all places. The stump mics also played a big role in driving a serious wedge between India and Australia when Steve Smith led his team to the subcontinent for what came to be known as the "brainfade" tour.
Later in the day, former Aussie pacer Mitchell Johnson would write in his Fox Sports column about his views on the stump mics being "turned up".
"I would have been nervous in my playing days if I had heard the stump mics were going to be turned up but not because I had anything to hide. I never said anything personal.
I would have been more worried about accidentally swearing, which can happen in the heat of the battle and that happens for both sides - not just Australia," he wrote.
Kohli was asked about the incessant scrutiny that he in particular has been put under over the last couple of weeks, whether he's at the team hotel or in the middle having a "non-swearing" spat with his counterpart. This was before the audio clip of the Jadeja-Ishant argument made it to the press
"Not really. As I said, as long as there is no swearing out there on the field and there are no personal attacks, the line doesn't get crossed. There is banter going on. Even at Adelaide there was banter here and there... it's Test cricket at the end of the day, it has to be competitive. You can't say that people aren't going to try and get you out in any way possible at all.
"With the stump mics and cameras and all these things, honestly when the bowler is bowling you aren't thinking whether the stump mic is on or the camera is on or not. And when you are facing that ball, literally there is no one in the stadium apart from you and that ball. So, these things are totally irrelevant, and you are actually not aware of them when you are on the field. It's never bothered me, it's never been something that's of importance to me to be honest. For me it's irrelevant," is what he'd said.
Irrelevant is in a way a good way to describe what took place between the two Indian teammates. But when the cricket field is turned into a virtual 'Bigg Boss' or 'Big Brother' platform, it's difficult for even the most irrelevant chat between two high-profile, highly charged-up elite sportsmen, to not become a high-level controversy.
