Former Indian Captain Questions Harmanpreet Kaur’s Professionalism, Slams Her For Running In A Relaxed Manner In World Cup Semi vs Australia

New Delhi: India lost to Australia by just five runs in their semi-final fixture of the Women’s T20 World Cup, in Cape Town on Thursday. India’s lenient fielding allowed Australia to post a challenging 172 for four.

During India’s innings, they were struggling at 28/3 but Star Indian batter Harmanpreet Kaur’s (52 off 34) and Jemimah Rodrigues (43 off 24) helped India to make a comeback.

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In the 15th over Harmanpreet’s bat got stuck in the ground while coming back for the second run and Australia’s pacer Alyssa Healy was quick enough to get her out.

Even after their defeat, Women in Blue received a lot of love and support from fans all over the globe. However India’s former captain Diana Edulji was not really impressed by their performance.

In an interview with PTI Diana slammed Harmanpreet for jogging while completing the second run and questioned her professionalism.

“She is thinking the bat got stuck but if you see the second run she was jogging. Why are you running in a relaxed manner when you know when your wicket is so important? You have to play professional cricket to win. Look at the dive Perry made to save those two runs. That is what professionalism is,” Edulji told PTI.

Edulji recalled an advice from the legendary Sunil Gavaskar to criticise Harmanpreet for the run-out.

“They don’t give up till the end and we are not ready to fight at all. You can’t be falling at the last hurdle all the time. She was casual on the second run. She thought she would comfortably reach. We were told in the 1970s by Mr. Sunil Gavaskar that every ball you have to learn to ground your bat then only you get into that habit. Her bat was in the wrong hand (left). If she held it in the right hand, she would have been able to stretch herself and complete the run,” she further said.