Diana Edulji writes: It was deplorable… Harmanpreet Kaur crossed the limit against Bangladesh | Cricket News

I have been very durbed the visuals from Saturday’s India-Bangladesh women’s game at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Dhaka that ended in a tie. I have been watching cricket for a long time but have never seen anyone behave that way India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur did after the game. What happened in Bangladesh was uncalled for.
Cricketers reacting to a bad umpiring decision, though not ideal, is nothing new. To a certain extent, one can be pardoned since when you get out in a crunch match, sometimes it is difficult to control the emotions. Harmanpreet isn’t the first cricketer to show dissent and the ICC rightly imposed sanctions on her. I understand wrong decisions were made. We have seen wrong decisions in the past too, not only in women’s cricket but in men’s cricket too.
However, what happened post-game was not needed, all the more because Harmanpreet is the Indian captain. She has set a bad example for her teammates. I say that because juniors look up to seniors and this, over a period of time, can impact the team culture. This makes Harmanpreet’s behaviour all the more unacceptable.

IND-W captain Harmanpreet hit the stumps, shouts at the umpire then showed middle finger & thumb to the fans after given LBW the umpire, claiming it was bat. little did she know the catch was taken as well the fielder. Again complained about the umpire at match presentation pic.twitter.com/VbjrT1Ijp7
— SazzaDul Islam (@iam_sazzad) July 22, 2023
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It was deplorable to see Harmanpreet call the umpires to pose with the Bangladesh team, suggesting that they were part of the team and playing for them. I am aware that Harman is hot-tempered, and maybe her ugly conduct was because she wasn’t able to score runs. But she crossed the limit that day as she continued to protest during the presentation ceremony.

“Bring the umpires too.”
“Why you are only here? You haven’t tied the match. The umpires did it for you. Call them up! We better have photo with them as well.”
~ Harmanpreet Kaur pic.twitter.com/VRTEiswxRv
— Cricketopia (@CricketopiaCom) July 23, 2023
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What is more worrying is the fact that the team is not performing as per expectations. The BCCI is giving them everything possible. The problem is that these players are playing like stars and not concentrating on their cricket. It is high time the BCCI takes action. Such behaviour cannot be accepted.
Meanwhile, the Indian board also needs to ensure that the women’s team gets permanent coaching staff. There is an urgent need for intervention, the ad-hoc appointments should stop. There has been no coach for six months and we need to sort out this problem before the Asian Games.
Lot of issues
Why is there so much delay in hiring support staff? Ad-hoc coaches can’t understand a team. They are not worried about the players because they know they are there for a short duration. We need full-time support staff so that these girls can get serious.
At the same time, it’s high time BCCI takes some tough calls, there is no accountability right now. Players need to realise that if they cross the line, the Indian board will take action. During the series we saw Jemimah (Rodrigues) and Shafali (Verma) bowling, where are the bowlers?
Luckily, they got wickets but they have not been picked because of their bowling. From the look of things, it seems that since Shafali is not scoring, the team is trying to cement her place getting her to bowl.
Where are the pacers? The selectors picked Shikha Pandey, but she has been dropped. Pooja Vastrakar has been kept in the reserves for the Asian Games. Is there something wrong going on there? Hope the BCCI has a meeting with the team and asks them some tough questions. They need to answer what went wrong and why. There is also a need to fix accountability for everyone, be it player or selector or coach.
In my opinion, the team should also have a proper fitness roadmap. They can even go for rigorous army training. There has been a report about selectors not picking Richa Ghosh as she failed a fitness test but looking at this team, there could easily be more players who would have failed the test, but they are still in the team.
The BCCI is giving them everything, from high pay to facilities, and it’s high time they have a psycholog to understand why these girls choke whenever there is a pressure situation. What is the reason that we weren’t able to do well against a team like Bangladesh? What will be the scenario if we play ‘big’ teams like England and Australia?