In a surprising incident on Saturday, Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur smashed the stumps with her bat after being given out by the umpire. This controversial incident came during the 3rd ODI match between India women and Bangladesh women.
Meanwhile, India choked on an easy run chance where they were in a comfortable position to win the match and clinch the series by 2-1. India lost the match when they needed 10 runs in 19 deliveries with the remaining 4 wickets in hand. Indian batting collapsed from 191 for five to 217 for 9 wickets. India got all out on 225 resulting in sharing of the trophy, with the Player of the Series award given to batter Fargana Hoque and Player of the Match to Harleen Deol for her resilient knock of 77 off 108 deliveries.
What exactly happened?
The third ODI between India and Bangladesh women’s teams ended with controversial decisions. After winning the toss, Bangladesh opted to bat and set a challenging total of 226 on the slow and sluggish surface of Shere Bangla National Stadium of Dhaka. While chasing the target, India got out on 225 resulting the match in a tie and the teams sharing the trophy with the result of 1-1.
The incident took place in the 34th over of the second innings when the Indian batter Harmanpreet Kaur was facing spinner Nahida Akter and was given out Lbw while attempting the sweep. Kaur missed the sweep and the ball went directly to slips after lobbing off her pads. Even before the catch was taken, Umpire had given it out after the appeal of Nahida Akter. Indian Captain was furious with that decision and smashed the stumps with her bat.
She even continued arguing with the umpire as she was seen showing gestures of bat indicating there was a bat involved as she walked towards the pavilion. She then showed thumbs up to celebrating crowd in Dhaka while walking off. She even said “Bring the umpires too in Post match photo as she intimated that they were part of this win too”, According to ESPN Cricinfo.
Remarks of Harmanpreet Kaur in Post-match Conference
After the match, Harmanpreet Kaur slammed Umpires Tanvir Ahmed and Muhammad Kamruzzan saying “A lot of learnings from this game.” Apart from cricket, there were instances where umpiring was very surprising. She said, “India will make sure that the will have to deal with this type of umpiring decisions here and plan accordingly whenever we come here next time, it was Pathetic Umpiring.
She even appreciated the Bangladesh team by saying “They batted really well and batted according to the situation.” She added, “They were taking those crucial singles which were very crucial at that time.” Apart from the decision of Harmanpreet Kaur, there were more instances of poor Umpiring in the series such as the Lbw decision of Yastika Bhatia in the fifth over and the decision of Meghna Singh in the last over.
Views of Smriti Mandhana in Post-match Conference
Smriti Mandhana defended her captain Harmanpreet Kaur by saying what happened in the middle was part and parcel of the game. We have seen this type of incidents happening men’s cricket so many times.” She added, “When you want to win the games so badly for your country, we can think about Spirit of the game and all that sorts of things later.
She further added, “When you play for India, you want to win every match si it happens in the heat of the moment but she wasn’t really happy with the decisions given on the series. She mentioned the need of neutral umpires in future, “I’m sure BCCI, ICC and BCB will have talks about having neutral umpires in future.
What did Bangladesh Captain say?
The comments of Harmanpreet Kaur weren’t taken well by Nigar Sultana and she criticised the Indian captain saying, “It was a poor act from form Kaur and her words made Bangladesh team uncomfortable, hence they left.
She further said, “It’s her problem and she has nothing to do with it. Cricket is a game of manners and discipline. As a Player, she could have shown better manners” While defending the umpires Nigar said, “If she wasn’t out, umpires wouldn’t have given her out.” Umpire decision is the Final decision, she further added.
