Reports of turmoil in the India Women’s team camp post Asia Cup loss

Indian team lost to Bangladesh in Women's Asia Cup T20 final.

Head coach of Indian women's team Tushar Arothe with Mithali Raj

The pressure of repeating the success of Women’s World Cup 2017 and a string of losses including the Asia Cup finals loss against Bangladesh has created discord amongst the Indian Women’s cricket team if reports are to be believed.

This came to fore when a meeting was held with limited overs captains Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur attending along with Committee of Administrators chief Vinod Rai and member Diana Edulji. However, head coach Tushar Arothe was not invited for the said meeting, in which women's selection committee chief Hemalata Kala and team manager Trupti Bhattacharya were also present.

June 13 saw a series review meeting held in Bengaluru after India Women lost to Bangladesh in the Asia Cup.

ESPNCricinfo reported that the relations between coach Arothe and the team were on all-time high till the South Africa tour, where India won handsomely in both ODI and T20I series. However, things came crumbling down after India failed to perform against England and Australia at home and this has made things ugly between coach and regular members of the team.

One of the major reasons for the fall out seems to be the training methods. Arothe, who was appointed in April of 2017, has had mandatory practice sessions of roughly two-and-a-half-hours each in the morning and late afternoon, and an optional afternoon session. The optional session was designed to help the batting talents of tailenders and roughing out the edges of other talents.

However, a majority of players wanted a long session in a day, so that they could accommodate gym training and if needed, an optional session; and this feedback was conveyed to Arothe before the Asia Cup.

Another reason has been the dubious selection calls and a big one was dropping the 17-year-old Jemimah Rodrigues from the playing XI for the entire tournament. It is believed that her below-par performance against Malaysia in the warm-up game and in nets led to her being left out. This decision was taken in consultation with Harmanpreet, the captain, and vice-captain Mandhana.

From June 15-25, a conditioning camp was to be held at NCA, but speculations over the regular members of the team addressing the board officials about their discontent with Arothe became evident and the camp was canceled and BCCI imposed a media gag on players and support staff.

A new camp will take place around July 25 which will see all the players- barring Mandhana and Harmanpreet, who will be leaving to play in KSL- taking part. Another skill specific camp for fast bowlers and batsmen will be held in two batches on June 30 and July 5.

India next plays Sri Lanka in a limited overs tour in Sri Lanka in September and a possible series against West Indies ahead of the World T20 in November.   

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 30 Jun, 2018

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