During the post-match press conference, Vice Captain Smriti Mandan was seen defending Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and said “When you play for India, you want to win the match. It happens in the heat of the moment” She continued to say “I don’t think she said anything towards the Bangladesh captain. From whatever I heard, think talked a bit about umpiring”.
Smriti Mandana Said:
Harmanpreeet’s Behaviour:
“What happened in the middle is part and parcel of the game. We have seen these incidents so much in the past in men’s cricket,” Smriti said.
“When you play for India, you want to win the match. It happened in the heat of the moment, but I think she was not really happy with the decision given (against her). She was given out and she felt that she was not out,”.
“When you want to win so badly, I think the spirit of the game and all those things, definitely we can talk about later. But knowing Harman as a person and knowing how much she wants to win for India, from the spirit of the game (perspective) that it is (wrong), but yeah, when you really want that ‘W’ on the board for India, these things happen.”
“I don’t think (she said this). You have stated it. I don’t think she said anything towards the Bangladesh captain. From whatever I heard, think talked a bit about umpiring. I don’t think she said anything about them (the Bangladesh players),” she said.
Umpire decisions:
“In any match, sometimes it happens that you are not really happy with the kind of… especially when there is no DRS in the series this time,” she said
“We expect a little better level — I would term it in a better way that, better level of umpiring in terms of some decisions, because it was very evident in some decisions, there was not even a second thought given if the ball hit the pad. Not even one-second thought was given and the finger went up,”
She hoped having neutral umpires would be the way forward.
“I am sure that ICC the BCB (Bangladesh Cricket Board) and the BCCI will definitely have a discussion on that, maybe we have a neutral umpiring system so that we do not sit here having this discussion, maybe we can focus on cricket and cricket-oriented questions,” she added.