Mithali’s manager criticises captain Kaur

NEW DELHI: The Indian cricket team’s decision to drop their senior-most player Mithali Raj for their Women’s World T20 semi-final against England on Thursday — a match they lost — has sparked a controversy with Raj’s manager publicly criticising captain Harmanpreet Kaur on various fronts on Twitter.

Raj’s manager, Annisha Gupta, called Harmanpreet a “manipulative, lying, immature, undeserving captain” and also said the women’s team believed in “politics not sport”.

“Unfortunately @BCCIWomen believes in politics not sport. After witnessing what @M_Raj03’s experience could do in IndvIre it’s shocking that they went with what pleases @ImHarmanpreet - a manipulative, lying, immature, undeserving captain,” Gupta’s tweet read, soon after India were knocked out of the Women’s World T20.

In another tweet, she called Harmanpreet a “manipulative, lying, cheat”. On Friday evening, Gupta confirmed to Cricinfo that the unverified Twitter account belonged to her and defended her statements, saying that the harsh criticism came “from the right place”.

However, her account was deleted a couple of hours after she confirmed that the tweets were by her.

“I’d like to say that I don’t know what is going on on the inside but, now that the matches are being telecast, we can see who is performing and who is not,” Annisha Gupta told Cricinfo.