Bangladesh women’s team skipper Nigar Sultana has responded to Jahanara Alam’s accusation that she physically assaulted her juniors. Responding to her comments, Sultana defended herself by asking why she would hit anyone and questioned if she is the Indian captain, Harmanpreet Kaur, who hit the stumps with her bat in anger back in 2023.
“Why would I hit anyone? I mean, why would I strike the stumps with my bat? Am I Harmanpreet, that I would go around hitting the stumps like that? Why would I do it? In my personal space, if I’m cooking or something, I might bang my bat around, I might hit my helmet – that’s my own business,” Joty said in an interview with Daily Cricket.
“But why would I do something like that to someone else? Why would I get physical? Just because someone says so? You can ask the other players or anyone else whether I’ve ever done anything like that,” she added.
What did Jahnara Alam say?
Speaking to Bangladesh-based newspaper Kaler Kantha, the 32-year-old Alam said that the current captain Joty “beats up” junior cricketers in the team “a lot.”
A veteran of 52 ODIs and 83 T20Is for Bangladesh, Alam last featured for Bangladesh against Ireland in December 2024 and was subsequently dropped from the side.
“This is nothing new. Joty beats up the juniors a lot. Even during this World Cup, the juniors told me, ‘No, I won’t do this again. Then I’ll have to get slapped again.’ I heard from some people, ‘I got beaten up yesterday.’ Even during the Dubai tour, she called a junior into the room and slapped her.”
What did Harmanpreet Kaur do?
Harmanpreet’s disapproval of the officiating in the final ODI against Bangladesh in Mirpur in 2023 was evident with her reaction to being given out caught at slip while mistiming a sweep — smashing the stumps and having a heated discussion with the umpire as she walked off.
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While the official decision says she was caught, it is unclear whether the umpire had signalled for LBW or not, which Harmanpreet evidently disagreed with as she walked off gesturing to her glove and giving a thumbs up to the local crowd.
There were three decisions that irked the Indians in particular: The dismissals of Harmanpreet, Meghna Singh and Yastika Bhatia. Bangladesh’s Muhammad Kamruzzman and Tanvir Ahmed were the umpires for the game.
For the Harmanpreet and Meghna dismissals, the umpire at the bowler’s end was Tanvir while Kamruzzman gave Yastika out.
Later, in the post-match interview, she made her displeasure with the umpiring blatantly clear. “A lot of learning from this game. Even apart from the cricket, the type of umpiring that was happening there, we were very surprised,” the Indian skipper said.
