It may seem like we’re unneccesarily raking up issues because Team India has had a disastrous day — the way the second Test started has indeed made it easy for critics to point fingers at any player — but the attitude of the Indian cricket board towards this South African series needs to be examined.

With 15 days to go for the Indian Premier League (IPL), the BCCI is encouraging the players to hop on to chartered flights, do jigs at promos, and shoot advertisements at any opportunity they can get.

Even after practice on Wednesday, Sourav Ganguly, Murali Kartik and Ishant Sharma were involved in a shoot for the Kolkata Knight Riders.

In the three days between the Chennai and Ahmedabad Tests, Sreesanth, Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan danced on stage for a Punjab Kings event, while Virender Sehwag dashed off to Delhi straight after the game for the Daredevils launch. In Chennai, MS Dhoni was allowed to be part of a Chennai Superkings function in the middle of the Test, while the Bangalore Royal Challengers ads had kept several members of the team occupied on the eve of that game.

It would perhaps be too cynical to suggest that the players did badly today because they had been dancing while they should have been practicing. But questions must be raised about how events around this Test series seem to be more important than cricket. If nothing else, it must be a distraction for the players. In contrast, the South African team have refused to allow any of their players to be part of any IPL launches on this tour.

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