ISLAMABAD: Former Indian captain and cricketer Virat Kohli on Monday expressed his frustration at a fan for recording a video of his hotel room in Perth and releasing it online without consent.
India are in Australia playing the ICC T20 World Cup 2022. Rohit Sharma’s team were stationed at a hotel in Perth where they held their preparatory camp for the tournament.
On Monday, Kohli criticized a fan for filming and recording a video of his hotel room and uploading it without permission. The Indian cricketer did not say when the video was recorded. However, ESPNcricinfo reported it was from October 8, two days after the team arrived in Australia.
“I understand that fans get very happy and excited seeing their favorite players and get excited to meet them and I’ve always appreciated that,” Kohli wrote in his post on Instagram. He shared the video recorded by the fan, which was captioned: “King Kohli’s hotel room.”
The former Indian skipper termed the video “appalling” and added that it had made him feel very paranoid about his privacy.
“If I cannot have privacy in my own hotel room, then where can I really expect any personal space at all?? I’m NOT okay with this kind of fanaticism and absolute invasion of privacy,” he wrote.
“Please respect people’s privacy and not treat them as a commodity for entertainment,” he added.
Crown Towers, the hotel where the incident took place, apologized to Kohli for the incident. It said “the individuals involved have been stood down and removed from the Crown account.”
“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,” the hotel management said.
The hotel further said it was working with the ICC and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as it makes progress on the investigation.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) said it was “incredibly disappointed by the gross invasion of privacy” that Kohli had suffered. “We continue to work with event hotels and security providers to ensure that this remains an isolated incident and player privacy is fully respected at all times,” it said.
