BEN HARVEY: Why the secrecy around the Indian cricket team’s training sessions?

Get your hand off it, India.

The secrecy surrounding the test match in Perth was ridiculous.

Nuclear launch codes are guarded less zealously than Virat Kohli was when he landed on the west coast this week to play cricket.

Virat and his team flew in on the QT and there was an immediate media blackout.

Construction workers at the WACA were banned from even watching him as he trained. God forbid some knucklehead tradie filmed him.

You can forgive us our curiosity, Virat, surely?

Take it as the compliment it is!

You’re one of the big four batsmen of the age, sharing the podium with Australia’s Steve Smith, England’s Joe Root and New Zealand’s Kane Williamson.

In terms of total runs you’re first in IPL, second in T20, third in one-dayers and fourth overall.

You’ve captained two World Cup-winning teams and are a four-time ICC ODI player of the year.

No pool room could be big enough for all your silverware!

So why did you initially baulk at giving us a little thrill by letting us watch you train?

Observing players in the nets ahead of a game is one of cricket’s great traditions.

If Don Bradman and the Little Master (your idol) were OK with it, surely you should be.

Keeping cricket training secret is a little bizarre. It’s not like American football, where teams surprise their opponents with new set plays.

Were you worried we were going to discover you have a spicy cover drive?

Secret’s out, mate!

I know you had a bad experience last time you were in Perth, what with those workers at Crown filming inside your hotel room.

It was hardly a scandal, though. The footage revealed you keep your shoes in a neat line, travel with a lot of lotions and potions and either re-wrap the ironing cord quite precisely or prefer non-ironed shirts.

Sure, the secrecy added to the hype but I am not sure we needed more. You are the Ron Burgundy of international cricket — kind of a big deal!

And why the glass jaw?

Ricky Ponting points out the bleeding obvious fact that your form hasn’t been flash over the past couple of seasons and your coach blows his lid?

Rise above it and have some fun!

It’s time to go, Kevin

Donald Trump bears a grudge and Kevin Rudd’s impertinent spray on what was then Twitter means our Ambassador to the US is now a one-man ANZUS-killer.

At best Rudd is now a lame duck; at worst he is a diplomatic embarrassment who makes Sir Les Patterson look professional.

Embassy staff had tried to bleach Rudd’s comments from the internet but clearly they ran out of White King because the words “he drags America and democracy through the mud” are writ large in cyberspace.

Anthony Albanese can probably walk back his “President Trump scares the shit out of me” observation but his man in Washington is surely cooked.

Rudd is hoping his bacon will be saved by an innovative diplomatic strategy (Project Two Kevs) which seeks to propagate the idea there are not one but two Kevin Rudds.

The first Kevin Rudd is the bloke who worked as a private citizen for the Asia Society think tank after being arseholed as prime minister of Australia.

The second is Kevin Rudd the Australian Ambassador to the United States of America.

The White House is meant to believe they are two completely different people, the latter of whom doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the views of the former.

When Trump re-drains the swamp, Kevin07 is odds on to get sluiced out with the rest of the muck.