An interview on The Grade Cricketer Podcast (TGC) of RCB players Dan Christian and Kyle Jamieson speaking about their IPL skipper Virat Kohli was taken down days after it was released, with the Royal Challengers Bangalore informing Christian that he was in breach of his contract with the franchise, according to TGC.
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Earlier this week, Christian, currently part of the RCB squad in IPL 2021, had appeared on an episode of TGC alongside Jamieson, where they discussed light-hearted anecdotes involving Kohli and the RCB team from inside the IPL bio-bubble. Christian had joked about how “cagey” Kohli had been by asking Jamieson to bowl at him with a Dukes ball in the RCB nets, in preparation for the World Test Championship final next month. He also revealed that Kohli attends only “half the things” when it comes to off-field team meetups, saying “you don’t see Kohli a lot off the field, you only see a little bit”. The quotes were reported widely in both print media and online.
The video, titled ‘Kyle Jamieson and Dan Christian on Kohli, Harshal Patel and Getting Home’, was taken down from TGC’s YouTube channel on April 30.
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On the latest episode of the podcast, which began with TGC revealing the would be donating all proceeds from their Friday Lock-In shows to Covid relief charities in India, hosts Sam Perry and Ian Higgins issued a clarification about the deleted episode, revealing that Christian had reached out to them to take it down.
“Earlier this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, it is no joke but it is pretty funny, but it’s not lie,” Perry said, “I was informed by Dan Christian that he has been issued a warning for breach of contract following his appearance on The Grade Cricketer earlier this week. We don’t know if the same was applied to Kyle Jamieson. Dan was asked to request us to take that interview down – the interview that is widely circulating around the world already – by RCB. RCB have requested that the interview be taken down, and on account for our respect for Dan, and his contract, we have taken it down.
“We can only speculate as to why the interview has been taken down. The official reason, from what we understand, is that RCB contractually hold the rights for footage emanating from their bubble which is my words, I don’t know the legal term. But what I’m seeing, Higgo, is that this is now a banned book. This is the banned interview. This is the interview RCB didn’t want you to see.
“We understand that we are now not getting player interviews from RCB.”
Wisden India understands the warning issued to Christian was not an official one, but also that RCB has had a discussion with all the players reminding them of the protocols surrounding media appearances.
