Disharmony between India women's cricket team players and coach Tushar Arothe?

Mumbai: Reports of a rift between few stars of the Indian women’s cricket team and head coach Tushar Arothe have emerged following a poor run of results lately including the team’s dismal show against Bangladesh in the Women’s Asia Cup T20 2018 final.

Arothe wasn’t a part of a meeting attended by limited-overs captains Mithali Raj(ODI) and Harmanpreet Kaur(T20), Committee of Administrators (CoA) head Vinod Rai and Diana Edulji on Wednesday, according to a report by ESPNCricinfo. Women's selection committee chief Hemalata Kala and team manager Trupti Bhattacharya were also present.

This is the second gathering after the series review meeting conducted in Bengaluru on June 13, after the Women in Blue returned from the Asia Cup. Arothe, BCCI general manager (cricket operations) Saba Karim, and BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary were a part of that.

It is learnt that the disharmony occurred after a poor string of results against Australia in the bilateral home series, followed by an abysmal showing in the tri-series also featuring England. The recently-concluded Asia Cup defeat further stoked the flames.

That’s not it. Another reason for a discord between the players and the coach is due to the rigid training sessions. Since Arothe’s appointment in April 2017, the coach has made it mandatory to conduct two training sessions of around two-and-a-half hours each – one in the morning and one late afternoon. An optional afternoon session has also been part of the team’s training regimen.

However, the players want to have one long session during the day so that they can make time for workouts in the gym or for an additional training session. Cheeky selection calls have also left the players unimpressed. 17-year-old Jemimah Rodrigues did not feature even once during the entire Asia Cup tournament while every other player has featured in at least, one game.

Even the team’s proposed conditioning camp at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru was called off at the last-minute as high-profile players addressed their grievances to senior BCCI board officials.

The camp will now be held in two separate batches at the NCA on June 30th and July 5th. Only a few players will be a part of it. Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana will give it a miss due to their participation in the Kia Super League.

India now gears up for the series against Sri Lanka in September before the grand World T20 tournament in November.