Ramesh Powar rubbishes report of him meeting BCCI officials and admitting to differences with Mithali Raj

India women’s coach Ramesh Powar on Wednesday rubbished reports of him meeting BCCI officials and admitting to differences with senior cricketer Mithali Raj.

Powar has been in the limelight of late for all the wrong reasons after Raj lashed out at him for humiliating and discriminating against her during the recently-concluded Women’s World T20 in the Caribbean. Raj had been dropped for the semi-final against England, which India went on to lose by eight wickets, despite being declared fit and showing good form with the bat.

“I was shocked to read PTI story about my meeting with the BCCI officials. I totally deny the contents in the story,” tweeted Powar , a former member of the Indian men’s team.

Reports surfaced on Wednesday regarding Powar giving his side of the story in the ongoing storm. A BCCI official, on condition of anonymity, claimed that the coach had described Raj as ‘aloof’ and someone who was ‘difficult to handle’, which led to the differences in the first place. The report added that Powar justified Raj’s absence from the semi-final clash, saying it was purely for cricketing reasons and not borne out of malice.

I was shocked to read PTI story about my meeting with the BCCI officials. I totally deny the contents in the story.

— RAMESH POWAR (@imrameshpowar) November 28, 2018

Raj, a veteran of 10 Tests, 197 ODIs and 85 T20Is, had earlier sent a mail to BCCI CEO Rahul Johri and GM (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim, accusing Powar of mistreating her during the World T20 campaign, and that she wasn’t aware about not playing against England until the warm-up session on the morning of semi-final. She also claimed that Edulji had used her position against her and made her feel vulnerable.

However, Raj added that she had no qualms against India T20I captain Harmanpreet barring the fact that the latter decided to back the coach’s decision to leave her out of the team for the big match.