Firstpost Spodcast Episode 91: Mithali Raj accuses coach Ramesh Powar of bias; runner Nirmala Sheoran fails dope test and more

Politics galore in women’s cricket, as Mithali Raj accuses coach Ramesh Powar of bias after exclusion from World T20 semi-final in a letter to BCCI. She expressed her anger over the ‘humiliation’ she faced moments before she was dropped from the playing XI of the World T20 semi-final against England. She stated that Powar humiliated her during the course of the tournament. Raj’s personal coach RSR Murthy was quoted as saying in The Sportstar that she was told during the warm-up session on the morning of the semi-final that she was not going to feature in the playing XI. BCCI gets tough with age norms and announces that any cricketer guilty of age fraud will be banned from all BCCI tournaments for a period of 2 years. In a press statement to convey the latest development, they said: “The BCCI has a zero-tolerance policy for age fraud in sport and has taken strict action against cricketers found guilty of manipulating their date of birth certificates while registering for BCCI tournaments. “As conveyed to state associations at the start of the season, BCCI wishes to reiterate that from the 2018-19 season, any cricketer who is found guilty of tampering his/her date of birth will be disqualified and barred from participating in any BCCI tournament for a period of 2 years i.e. 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.” Former captain Rahul Dravid, in a 2015 MAK Pataudi lecture, had said that impact of age-fraud was as noxious as match-fixing and corruption. In Indian Athletics, Asian champion quarter-miler Nirmala Sheoran and five others fail dope test. Sheoran, who came fourth in the women’s 400m event of the Jakarta Asian Games earlier this year, has been provisionally suspended after tests conducted in the WADA’s Montreal laboratory. This came after the same samples returned negative results in tests conducted by the National Dope Testing Laboratory. Sheoran won her Asian Championships gold last year in Bhubaneswar. Lastly, in Indian football news, NorthEast United FC beat FC Pune City 2-0 in an Indian Super League clash at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Pune on Tuesday. Bartholomew Ogbeche and Juan Mascia scored a goal each to seal three points for the visitors, who have continued their unbeaten run away from home and climbed to the second spot on the league table with 17 points from eight matches. Ogbeche has equalled FC Goa’s Ferran Corominas’ tally of eight goals in the race for the Golden Boot.