CoA To Meet Harmanpreet Kaur And Mithali Raj After Latter's Exclusion From Playing XI In WT20 Semifinal

The Committee of Administrators (CoA) could summon Indian women’s team skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and Mithali Raj following the senior most player’s controversial omission for the World T20 semi-final against England.

India’s campaign in the showpiece event in the Caribbeans ended on a disappointing note. India entered the semifinal on the back of an impressive showing in the group stage.

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Harmanpreet Kaur & Co. had won all four of their group games and brushed teams like New Zealand and Australia aside with surprising ease. Their batters managed to post big scores and the spinners played their part admirably too. However, nothing worked for the Women in Blue as England dismantled them to storm into the final of the competition.

But the loss was not the biggest talking point after the game. In fact, it was the decision of the team-management to drop Mithali Raj that hogged all the limelight. The former skipper had sat out India’s last group match against Australia to nurse a knee injury. Prior to that, she had scored fifties in both the games she had batted in. However, the team-management surprisingly decided to drop her for the crucial clash.

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And the team fared poorly in her absence, suffering an inexplicable batting collapse.  At one stage, India were 89 for 2. However, they lost their eight wickets for just 23 runs to fold up for just 112. Well, the team surely missed the experience of Mithali Raj.

According to a top BCCI official, Mithali might put across her view point in writing to GM (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim, who is also in charge of women’s cricket.

“It is understood that a meeting will be held soon here and CoA is likely to speak separately to Harmanpreet, Mithali, Ramesh (coach Ramesh Powar), manager Trupti Bhattacharya and tour selector Sudha Shah to understand what led to Mithali’s omission,” a senior BCCI official told Hindustan Times.

Meanwhile, CoA chief Vinod Rai was unhappy that players’ agents are making unsavoury comments about team selection.

“The comments made by people who appear to be associated with the Indian women’s team have been viewed with concern. Such statements made in the media are totally uncalled for,” Rai told PTI.

Rai’s comments came after a tweet from a lady called Anisha Gupta. Anisha claims to be a freelance sports agent and got endorsements for Mithali. In a tweet that was later deleted, Gupta called Harmanpreet “cheat, liar and undeserving”.

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“The BCCI has a hierarchy of officials specifically dedicated to the redressal of genuine grievances of players,” said Rai.

“This is the appropriate mechanism that should be utilised. Issues that have been the cause for the performance of the Indian women’s team will be appropriately addressed,” Rai said.