Former Australia cricketer and current commentator Lisa Sthalekar slammed BCCI for not being sensitive enough towards India’s Veda Krishnamurthy, who recently lost her mother and her sister to the deadly coronavirus.
It is believed that the BCCI did not even reach out to the player when her family was suffering through such a difficult phase. It is said that the male players were given special treatment by the BCCI administration as they were provided with a door-step COVID-19 test before their tour.
Another shock that came in was that the all-rounder had not been picked for the upcoming England tour. Sthalekar felt that the administration was very insensitive to her and hence she took over the social media complaining about the BCCI.
Former Australian cricketer Lisa Sthalekar tweets her views criticizing BCCI on the apparent cold shoulder given to Veda Krishnamurthy. pic.twitter.com/PdhrD3cnEm
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) May 15, 2021
The BCCI had recently announced the contracted men’s players list for this season, whereas the women players’ contracts are due for renewal since September 2020. Recently, BCCI President Saurav Ganguly had opened up in an interview about how the BCCI has been working on developing the women’s game and planning on a better future for the women’s national team. But the facts suggest something totally different.
The Indian women’s team led by Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur have been playing without any permanent contract for the past 7 months. The BCCI is very up-to-date in the case of the men’s team, but when it comes to the women, the scenario changes completely.
“Whilst not selecting Veda for the upcoming series may be justified from their point of view, what angers me the most is that as a contracted player she has not received a communication from the BCCI, just to even check how she is coping. A true association must deeply care about its players and not focus solely on just the game at any cost. So disappointed. As a past player, the ACA has reached out daily to see how we are and provided all kinds of service. If there was a need for player association in India it is surely now. The stress, anxiety, fear, and grief that many players have experienced through this pandemic will take its toll on them as individuals and inadvertently affect the game,” her Twitter thread read.
The BCCI is being criticized over this behavior as other cricket boards have been in constant touch with their players, keeping an update of the player’s health and fitness, and nothing of such sort was seen from BCCI’s end towards the Indian women cricketers.
I’m a Senior Masters student pursuing Journalism and Mass Communication. An all time Cricket enthusiast. I could never play the game but always loved watching it, and now writing about it!