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T20 World Cup: Fruits, falafel, sandwich on menu leaves Indians livid after training

TOP Indian players decided to boycott the lunch provided the International Cricket Council (ICC) after their training session on Tuesday afternoon as they felt it was cold and inadequate. The Indian Express understands that the menu comprised fruits, falafel and ‘make your own sandwich’, which the top Indian players didn’t like, and expressed their displeasure to the concerned official at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Indians had an optional session attended captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Dinesh Karthik, Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Mohammed Siraj, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur and Deepak Hooda, alongwith the support staff. The team management gave a rest to Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya and Arshdeep Singh after the Pakan game in Melbourne on Sunday.
“The food was not up to the mark. We can’t have a sandwich after a practice session,” a member of the Indian squad said.
A few players had falafel at the ground while the rest decided to have food back at the hotel. The Indian team felt that as they bring a lion’s share of the revenue to the game, they deserve better.
Meanwhile, India will have a rest on the eve of their game against the Netherlands. It is learnt that the ICC had decided to hold India’s practice session at Blacktown, some 42 km away, but the team doesn’t want to travel so far.
The SCG will host a double-header on Thursday. South Africa will face Bangladesh in the afternoon before India play the Dutch in the evening. As per the scheduled release the ICC, South Africa, Bangladesh and the Netherlands will have their practice sessions at the SCG on Wednesday.
The Indian team had its camp at Blacktown during the 2021 tour of Australia where they had stayed at Olympic Park. But the team didn’t want to travel such a long dance on the eve of the match.
The ICC hands over the schedules to all participating teams way in advance and gets it approved. But it’s up to respective teams to take a call before each game whether they want to adhere to the schedule. However, the ICC doesn’t modify the schedule at the last moment unless there’s any unforeseen incident during the tournament.

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