Don’t feel burdened by World Cup defeat: Modi to Women’s team
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he had advised the Indian women’s cricket team not to feel burdened by the World Cup final defeat since they had backing of the nation.
Indian team ended runnerup at the prestigious ICC event after losing the final to England narrowly by nine runs.
Their unexpected performance in the World Cup followed a host of felicitations after the team’s arrival and Modi too hosted the entire squad at his residence here.
“I felt happy talking to them, but I had a feeling that they felt burdened by the fact that they could not win the World Cup. This stress, this tension was evident on their faces also,” Modi recalled during his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ address.
“I said, Look, this is the age of the media. So expectations get hyped up to such an extent that if corresponding success is not achieved, these turn into despair and even resentment.”
Modi said India chose to praise the women cricketers instead of criticising them for their defeat in the final.
“But it happened for the first time that when our daughters did not succeed in winning the World Cup, the hundred and twenty-five million people took this defeat on their own shoulders, never letting the burden weigh down these daughters of ours.
“Not only this, they lauded them and showered them with high praise for their brilliant performance. I view this as a healthy and pleasant change and I told these daughters that only they were blessed with such good fortune, and hence they should banish any thought of not having been successful.
“You may not have won the final match but you have won the hearts of 1.25 billion Indians,” he said. NEW DELHI: The controversy surrounding the selection of Indian team for the World Championships took a dramatic turn on Sunday with the seasoned 3000m steeplechaser Sudha Singh finding her name in the entry list of the IAAF but the AFI ruling out her participation in the global event.
Sudha was among the three athletes who did not figure in the original 24-member squad selected by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) despite winning gold in the recent Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar.
But her name surprisingly figured among the Indian participants in the entry list issued by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) late Saturday night.
“I just got to know that I am in the World Championships entry list. I am not yet being told by anybody from the AFI whether I have been included in the team or not. But I am ready to run in London,” Sudha said. “I have my visa ready and so just as the AFI tells me about my participation in World Championships, I will be immediately ready to fly to London. My name was not originally included in the squad (on July 23) but I remained hopeful (that I may be included later) and so I did not take the legal route (like what P U Chitra did),” said Sudha, who represented the country in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, besides the 2015 World Championships.