The visitors have been alleged of breaking bio-bubble protocols and not wanting to travel to Brisbane for the fourth Test.
Several sections of the Australian media rolled out pictures of Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya at a baby store in Sydney, making farcical allegations that their protocol breaches went unnoticed.
Reports Down Under also claim that the Indian team didn’t want to play the final Test in Brisbane owing to the mandatory hard quarantine set to be imposed in Queensland.
Cricket Australia, however, rebutted the claims, saying the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) hasn’t requested anything of that sort.
Pragyan Ojha attributed the falsified rumors to the Australians trying to get under the skin of the Indian team, who convincingly won the Boxing Day Test by eight wickets.
Test vice-captain Rohit Sharma was one of the five players spotted at the restaurant and accused of breaking protocols.
Pragyan Ojha, though, sounded confident that the reports are being put out in a certain way for the public to misinterpret them.
Pragyan Ojha has represented the Indian cricket team in 24 Tests, 18 ODIs and six T20Is, picking up 144 wickets.
Also read: ‘That’s stupidity to the core’ - Pragyan Ojha on reports of Kohli and Pandya having breached COVID protocol
‘This incident will again galvanise the Indian team further,’ says Deep Dasgupta
Former India wicketkeeper-batsman Deep Dasgupta was of the opinion that the recent allegations will “galvanise” the Indian players. He thinks the side will go into the remaining two Tests as a closely-knit unit.
With the series level at 1-1, stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane now has the task of rallying his troops and carrying the winning momentum into the third (Jan 7-11) and fourth Test (Jan 15-19).
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