'Indian women’s cricket team believes in politics not sport' - Mithali Raj’s manager lashes out at Harmanpreet

The loss to England in the semi-final of the ICC Women’s World T20 seems to have not gone down well with certain individuals who are connected to the Indian women’s cricket team. After Harmanpreet Kaur admitted that their strategy to go all-out attack backfired against the British, many have questioned the leadership capability of the Punjab-born cricketer.

However, one of the major issues that came up in the post-match discussions was the exclusion of Mithali Raj from the starting XI. While Kaur claimed that she chose the best XI as per her tactics, there have been rumours of some sort of tussle going on in the Indian dressing room.

Annisha Gupta, the manager of Mithali Raj, took to popular social media site Twitter to express her opinion on the issue as she posted a series a Tweets where she launched a scathing attack on the Indian team’s management and Harmanpreet Kaur, in particular.

“Unfortunately, the Indian women’s cricket team believes in politics not sport. After witnessing what Mithali Raj’s experience could do in India vs Ireland, it’s shocking that they went with what pleases Harmanpreet Kaur – a manipulative, lying, immature, undeserving captain,” as per reports in ESPNCricinfo.

Since then, not only have Gupta’s tweets been deleted, her account is missing from Twitter as Saturday. However, Gupta told ESPNcricinfo that the unverified Twitter account from which the tweets were made was her own account. Gupta also defended her comments, as she claimed that they came “from the right place”.

“I’d like to say that I don’t know what is going on on the inside but, now that the matches are being telecast, we can see who is performing and who is not. And we can see the kind of treatment that Mithali has received despite her brilliant performance and despite showing stability and consistency. The kind of treatment she has received is completely uncalled for and there is something deeper than we need to look at than just the statements that have been coming out.

“There are statements coming out that they wanted to give younger cricketers a chance but you don’t drop your senior-most, most experienced players in a semi-final against a country like England. It goes beyond giving the youngsters a chance. Maybe I was a little angry but I think it comes from the right place because I don’t stand for unfair treatment. The kind of favouritism that has been shown is very apparent. I think everybody can see the kind of favouritism that is being shown to certain members of the team,” Gupta told ESPNCricinfo.

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