RELIEVED JOHRI TO FOCUS ON ADMINISTRATION
MUMBAI: There was a look of relief on Rahul Johri’s face as he entered the Cricket Centre at Wankhede Stadium to resume office on Wednesday evening. Just minutes before, the BCCI CEO was exonerated of sexual harassment charges. But as one of the two-member COA, Diana Eduljee, was against Johri’s return to BCCI, the future can be uneasy.
“My job is to focus on administration,” said Johri, when asked that Edulji wanted him out of the establishment.
Although allegations against him were found to be “false and baseless”, Veena Gowda, one of the three-member probe panel, recommended Johri “undergo some form of gender sensitivity counselling/training.”
“I have been a thorough professional all my life. All the three members of the independent inquiry are unanimous in dropping all charges and I am really grateful to them.”
Johri said he was relieved to be back. “This was the most traumatic 40 days that my family and I have spent, god is kind. It is a tremendous feeling of relief; I am really grateful to my entire family and close friends for their unflinching support. We were always confident that the truth will finally emerge.”
Johri, who had done the groundwork for the case, said: “That was a great sense of relief. The amount of time and effort that went into the Pakistan matter was enormous and I am thankful to the BCCI legal team who worked like a well-oiled machine and won the case.”
QUALITY SIDE
However, England, the reigning ODI world champions, are a quality side in the shortest format and the scars of the summit clash loss at Lord’s can play on the minds of Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur, the two pillars of the women’s side.
Skipper Harmanpreet’s performance will be key to India’s success as she is known to rise to the occasion. The Moga-born cricketer can be safely termed as someone who is a ‘big match’ player.
Even in the current World T20, she has performed in two group league matches -- a match-winning century against New Zealand and a quick-fire 43 against Australia --, which proved to be decisive in the final context of the game.
She is currently leading the tournament run-chart with 167 runs from four games at a strike rate of 177 plus. Smriti Mandhana, with 144 runs, is fourth on the list.
MITHALI BACK
Against England, India will have their senior-most player Mithali Raj back in the side after being rested for the final group game against Australia as she was nursing a niggle suffered while fielding against Ireland. She will come back in place of spinner Anuja Patil.
Under new coach Ramesh Powar, India’s strategy of playing a single pacer has worked won- derfully as their spinners have done well throughout the league stages.
Leg-spinner Poonam Yadav (8 wickets) and left-arm spinner Radha Yadav (7 wickets) have been consistent throughout the tournament.
Off-spinners Deepti Sharma (4 wickets) and Dayalan Hemalatha (5 wickets) have also kept things tight.
Seamers Arundhati Reddy (10 overs) and Mansi Joshi (3 overs) have only bowled 13 overs across the four league games.
However, India played all their league matches at the same venue --Providence in Guyana -- and will now play a day/night game at a different venue.
For England, the focus will be more on their seam attack, comprising Anya Shrubsole (7 wickets) and Natalie Sciver (4 wickets). They have been very economical and contained Bangladesh and South Africa under 100 runs.
However, Dani Wyatt (28 in 3 games) and skipper Heather Knight (31 in three games) haven’t yet been tested save the game against West Indies, where England managed only 115 for 8 batting first and subsequently lost the match by four wickets.
The highest individual aggregate in this tournament is 50 from three games by Amy Jones but the semi-final will be the real test for the two teams.