File photograph of Indian women team captain Harmanpreet Kaur.
| Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
The India-Bangladesh rivalry in the women’s sport took a relatively unsavoury flip when Harmanpreet Kaur’s outburst against the umpires throughout India’s tour final yr left the host chagrined. Bangladesh skipper Nigar Sultana Joty didn’t mince phrases then, saying her reverse quantity ought to have ‘spoken with some manners.’
A bit of over 10 months later, the two sides meet once more, in a five-match T20I collection and whereas Nigar politely fields questions on this rivalry and that outburst patiently, she is keen to let a difficulty of the previous stay in the previous.
“The controversy has passed a long time back. As a professional team, we shouldn’t be thinking like that. It’s another opportunity for us to play against a good team,” Nigar mentioned forward of the first T20I between the two nations in Sylhet on Sunday.
As the captain of the nation which is able to host the T20 World Cup later this yr, Nigar presently has loads on her plate, the foremost being the duty of a aspect which has a mean age of 23.6.
“When I got the opportunity to represent the nation, I told myself that I have to do something different for the players which I did not have when I started off. The first thing was to remove this senior-junior barrier.
The unwitting rivalry notwithstanding, Nigar is excited at the prospect of brushing shoulders with Harmanpreet again. During Australia’s tour, she had gifted Healy a traditional red saree and bangles and is on the lookout for a gift for the Indian captain too.
“I was telling my players that I want to give Harman something, what should I give? So we’re brainstorming to see what to give. We want to give Harmanpreet the best gift.”
The schedule:
April 28 and 30 (6.30 p.m. IST); May 2 and 6 (1.30 p.m.); May 9 (6 p.m.).
All matches at Sylhet.