From the outside, the work of travelling media looks like a dream job, living and breathing cricket every day, getting the best seats in the house, witnessing sporting history, and in many ways it is a dream that everyone one of us in the press box have worked their hardest to achieve. Fifty days on the road, five Test matches, countless live shows, press conferences, practice sessions covered, drama unfolded, history made, but behind all the privilege lies one of the hardest parts of the role: staying objective.
When you’re on tour as a media professional, you are the eyes and ears of the audience, giving viewers insights or information on the unseen or unheard. But throughout, you’re not just reporting the game, you’re simultaneously living it, while you may not be accommodating in the same hotel, you travel with the same schedule as the team, you spend days in the same stadiums and practice nets, you wake up early morning to be there at the same time as players, you watch behind-the-scenes action as much as the centre stage. From warm-ups to silence after defeats, to small human moments that cameras never catch and through it all the line between observer and participant, or in this case media and team starts to blur.
When India breached fortress Edgbaston, you couldn’t help but feel proud. When Rishabh Pant limped to the crease on a broken foot, you couldn’t help but feel a surge of admiration. When Washington Sundar scored a century at Old Trafford, you couldn’t help but cheer him on. When Mohammed Siraj bowled through exhaustion, holding on to a mantra of “believe,” you found yourself praying for a wicket to fall in the last 57 minutes. But as a journalist, the challenge is not letting that turn into bias.
While objectivity and calling spade-a-spade is the essence of our job, objectivity doesn’t necessarily mean stripping away emotion. It means not letting admiration turn into personal admiration, or even frustration that drives you to overtly cynical criticism or abuse. There is a reason a press box is the stoic of all places, it is to balance the roar of the crowd with the quiet of the press box. You can celebrate the brilliance of Shubman Gill’s 754-run series and still question a poor shot selection or even his captaincy.
The Anderson-Tendulkar trophy is all but over. But among the many “I was there” moments, this will rank among the highest.
57 minutes of madness. The stoic press box gives way to pure, unfiltered joy. We were witnesses and participants in history. pic.twitter.com/Qmc2hQi7wX
— Gargi Raut (@gargiraut15) August 10, 2025
But there are also days where the moment is bigger than the job. Like the final 57 minutes at The Oval – India, on the back of Siraj’s humongous bowling effort, closed out a historic win to draw the series 2-2. For the Indian media, objectivity cracked, professionals turned superstitious, and when Siraj bowled out Gus Atkinson, the same professionalism gave way to pure, unfiltered joy. Not a single person in the press box stayed seated, many in the overflow section leapt in delight, even senior journalists, who have been covering the sport for decades were teary-eyed, after all we had witnessed the game bow down against the sheer will of the human spirit. In that instant, we were witnesses and participants in history.
While the press box rejoiced at the win, when we sat down to write our reports or stepped out of the stadium to do live shows, the objectivity snapped right back. Because it is the foundation of trust between journalists and readers, listeners and viewers. Audiences don’t want a highlight reel, they want the truth, the truth that isn’t reflected in the telly screens and it often sits in the uncomfortable middle ground between heroics and shortcomings.
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