The decision to drop veteran Indian cricketer Mithali Raj and India’s subsequent crushing defeat in the semi-final of the ICC Women’s World T20 has given rise to a heated debate. Team India was bundled out for a meager total of 112 despite having a decent start of 89/2. Eventually, they lost to England by eight wickets to crash out of the WWT20. Mithali struck consecutive fifties before being rested for India’s final group fixture against Australia.
In the first semi-final, Australia defeated the West Indies to make the final and India were to face England later on the same pitch. As per a report in The Times of India, the Indian team management decided to drop Mithali after observing how the pitch behaved and decided to continue fielding the same winning combination as from their previous match.
A meeting between skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, deputy skipper Smriti Mandhana, coach Romesh Powar and selector Sudha Rai was held ahead of the match to pick the playing XI.
ALSO READ: Harmanpreet Kaur Attempts To Justify Mithali Raj’s Exclusion
The report quoted team manager Trupti Bhattacharya’s report on the meeting as claiming that there was a general consensus among the participants of the meeting on dropping Mithali. She said, “I, as manager, convened the meeting. They (captain, coach, and selector) discussed the wicket and the coach expressed that the same winning combination against Australia should play. Harman and Smriti shared the same view and also told the selector, Sudha Shah, that an extra bowler would help the team.”
Some of the reports have also suggested that the selector was more a spectator during the meeting.
However, Harmanpreet said that she has “no regrets” as it was the decision taken keeping team’s interests in mind. She said that they decided to continue with the winning combination.
The news of Raj’s exclusion did not go down well with her manager Annisha Gupta, who lashed out at Kaur and the Indian think tank on Twitter.
ALSO READ: Harmanpreet Kaur feels proud on team’s performances
She tweeted, “Unfortunately @BCCIWomen believes in politics not sport. After witnessing what @M_Raj03 ‘s experience could do in IndvIre it’s shocking that they went with what pleases @ImHarmanpreet -a manipulative, lying, immature, undeserving captain.”
In another tweet, she called Kaur a “manipulative, lying, cheat”.
