Smriti Mandhana Fires Back At Reporter Questioning Harmanpreet Kaur's Criticism Of Umpires

Harmanpreet Kaur might have gone ballistic but Indian vice-captain Smriti Mandhana was way more tempered in her criticism of Bangladeshi umpires Muhammad Kamruzzaman and Tanvir Ahmed after the third WODI on Saturday was tied with some debatable decisions coming under scanner. Both teams wre locked at identical score of 225 and the series ended in a 1-1 draw. Skipper Kaur has courted controversy after she was adjudged leg-before off a Nahida Akter delivery while trying to sweep. She claimed that the ball hit the bat before hitting the pads. She broke the stumps in disgust and termed the umpiring "pathetic" at 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