‘Not very comfortable for anyone’ - Dravid reacts to Kohli’s privacy invasion at Perth hotel
Virat Kohli’s hotel room at Crown Perth was invaded in a shocking incident on Monday, with a video being filmed and put on social media platforms.
Kohli took to Instagram to express his disapproval of the incident, and stated: "I’m NOT okay with this kind of fanaticism and absolute invasion of privacy. Please respect people’s privacy and not treat them as a commodity for entertainment.”
Rahul Dravid, the team India head coach reflected on a “disappointing” series of events, and hoped that such actions aren’t repeated in future. India are currently in Adelaide, where they will face Bangladesh in their fourth Super 12s encounter on Wednesday, November 2.
“It's obviously disappointing. It's not very comfortable for anyone, let alone Virat. It is disappointing,” Dravid said in a press-conference on Tuesday.
“But yeah, we have flagged it with the relevant authorities. They've taken action. Hopefully incidents like this will not happen in the future, and hopefully people are a lot more careful because it's the one place where you feel you are away from people's prying eyes and without the media glare on you and without the photographs that all of these players have to deal with. It's the one place where you hope to feel secure and safe. That's taken away, it's not really a nice feeling.
“But yeah, I think he's dealt with it really well. He's fine. He's here at training. He's absolutely perfect. We've taken it up with the relevant authorities, and that's all we can do.
“Lovely to be in Adelaide. Lovely city. Good memories.”
Meanwhile, the hotel authorities have apologised to Kohli, the Indian cricket team and the International Cricket Council and have suspended the individuals involved.
"The safety and privacy of our guests is our number one priority, and we are incredibly disappointed this incident has occurred. We unreservedly apologise to the guest involved and will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure this remains an isolated incident," Crown said in a statement.
"We have zero tolerance for this behaviour, and it falls well below the standards we set for our team members and contractors.
"Crown has taken immediate steps to rectify the issue. The individuals involved have been stood down and removed from the Crown account, and the original video was swiftly removed from the social media platform.
"Crown is conducting an investigation with the third-party contractor and will take any further steps necessary to ensure an incident of this nature does not happen again.”