In a rather shocking turn of events, three guests, all from India, were found barging into the hotel and violating the privacy of the Indian cricket team at the Hyatt Regency in Bridge Street, Birmingham on Friday. All three were slapped with a warning. This comes ahead a couple of days of the India and England clash at Edgbaston.
As per a report in The Telegraph, the Indian management complained to the hotel staff about three guests who were clicking photos of family members of the Indian team without any permission.
And then around 4.30 (local time) in the evening the same guests were seen shouting and turning aggressive in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency, which has been Team India's address in Birmingham for years now.
Such nasty and extremely inappropriate behaviour of the guests prompted a member the Indian team management to put forward a request to the hotel staff to declare all of them as persona non grata - an unacceptable or unwelcome person - the report said.
Following this complaint, the hotel authorities warned all the three for their unacceptable behaviour around the Indian cricketers and even promised the Indian team complete privacy during the course of their stay in Birmingham.
"Inappropriate conduct would lead to an immediate check-out, without a second warning," according to a well-placed source of The Telegraph.
ICC has also deployed additional security
Besides the hotel's own security, ICC has also deployed additional security personnel in the hotels of all participating teams.
India will take on England in what is expected to be a high-voltage encounter at Birmingham on Sunday. Virat Kohli's men toppled England to be the new number one ODI side in the world in the match against West Indies and the hosts, who have dropped matches against Pakistan, Australia and Sri Lanka, would be keen to get their campaign back on track and be in a good shape to make it to the semi-finals.
"People are waiting for us to fail," England opening batsman Jonny Bairstow told reporters. "They are not willing us on to win. In many ways, they are waiting for you to lose so they can jump on your throat.
"It's just showbiz, they are paid to have an opinion and if they don't have an opinion they get sacked," he further added.
Ahead of the match against India, Bairstow sounded confident in the approach of his side and said that they would not change the way they play the game which has given them so much success over the past couple of years.
"Last summer we played really good cricket against them and we won that series and we won it well, so I think we go about it the same way we went about it and have been going about our cricket. Our method doesn't change," he added.
