'She Crossed the Limit, Set Bad Example for Teammates': Ex-IND Captain Slams Harmanpreet for 'Ugly Conduct'

Harmanpreet Kaur’s actions in the last ODI against Bangladesh on Saturday in Mirpur continue to garner criticism from the greats of the game. The Indian skipper expressed his disagreement over the on-field umpire’s decision by smashing the wickets with her bat and arguing with them. Later, she publicly denounced the quality of umpiring by calling it ‘pathetic’ and then mocked the officials and her counterpart, Nigar Sultana while sharing the trophy.

Former cricketers like Madan Lal and Anjum Chopra have reacted to the incident and now, former India captain Diana Edulji is the latest one to join the bandwagon. In her column for The Indian Express, Edulji stated that Harmanpreet has set poor examples for her teammates with her behaviour.

“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,” Edulji wrote.

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“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,” she added.

Edulji further mentioned that Harmanpreet crossed the limit that day. The latter’s gesture to call umpires for a photoshoot, suggesting that they too were part of the host team, was ‘deplorable’, Harmanpreet said.

“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,” said Edulji.