We expected better level of umpiring in terms of some decisions taken: Smriti Mandhana | Cricket News

NEW DELHI: While Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur‘s criticism of Bangladeshi umpires Muhammad Kamruzzaman and Tanvir Ahmed was quite fiery, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana chose a more restrained approach in expressing her views after the tied third WODI on Saturday, where some debatable decisions came under scrutiny.

With both teams finishing with an identical score of 225, the series concluded in a 1-1 draw.

However, Harmanpreet found herself in the midst of controversy when she was given out leg-before off a Nahida Akter delivery while attempting a sweep.
She vehemently claimed that the ball had struck her bat before hitting the pads. In her evident frustration, she broke the stumps and openly criticised the umpiring as “pathetic” during the post-match presentation.

“What did you think?” Mandhana shot back when questioned about the umpiring.
“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,” Mandhana 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,” Mandhana’s suppressed her anger with a more balanced reply.

Mandhana hoped having neutral umpires would be the way forward.
“I am sure that ICC, the BCB 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 said.
Talking about Kaur’s actions being contrary to ‘Spirit of Cricket’, Mandhana said that will be a discussion for another day.
“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,” Mandhana said in defence.
“When you play for India, you want to win the match. It happens 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,” she added.
“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, 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.”
(With PTI Inputs)