Vidarbha women cricketers came in for some sharp criticism from former players and coaches after their pathetic display in the quarterfinal against Delhi in Senior Women's One-Day Trophy at Baroda a couple of days ago. Vidarbha were most embarrassingly bowled out for their lowest total of 28 and suffered a big defeat at the hands of Delhi.
Three batters returned to the pavilion without scoring a run whereas five contributed just one run. Only one batter managed to get into double digits. Despite getting all the facilities, VCA senior women are inconsistent in their performance. In the last five seasons, Vidarbha qualified for the knockout stage on three occasions. In 2019-20, they crashed out at the league stage and then in 2020-21 they lost the quarterfinal. In the next season, they were out in the league stage. In the last season (2022-23) Vidarbha lost the pre-quarter and this season too the result remained unchanged.
Among the batters Bharti Fulmali (255 runs in nine matches) was the only consistent player in performance. Captain Disha Kasat (182 in nine matches) and Latika Inamdar (141 in nine) could not maintain the tempo.
Among bowlers, left-arm pacer Komal Zanzad was among top three wicket takers with 18 wickets in nine matches. Leggie Kanchan Nagwani captured 11 wickets in nine games. All in all the women totally failed to perform as a coordinated team.
Former VCA women committee chairman, player and coach Jyoti Thatte came down heavily on the players for their performance. Talking to Lokmat Times she said, "Vidarbha has been carrying non-performing and physically unfit players in the team." Stating that "personally" she did not have anything against the players, she wondered how "a couple of players whose contribution is absolutely nil, always manage to find a place in the team."
"If you want to develop the team then a clear message should be given to players that they will be thrown out if they keep performing badly. If VCA is giving them all required facilities then performance should be extracted from the players,” she maintained.
She also slammed some senior players for their inconsistency in performance. “We have a lot of expectations from the seniors like Bharti Fulmali and Disha Kasat. At least 25 runs are expected from them in each match.” The former coach also raised questions over the coaching staff. “The team has been tampering with opening combinations. Why has the support staff failed in identifying suitable players for opening during the practice matches”, she said.
Such performance
not acceptable: Bakre
Senior cricket coach Madhav Bakre whose academy has produced several budding women cricketers expressed surprise over Vidarbha senior women's performance. “Such a pathetic performance is not expected from our women's team. VCA is providing them all facilities. The association has developed a separate ground for them and also invited outstation coaches for training. Therefore, 28 all out is not acceptable at all. In the last few years we have found that only a couple of players perform. There is a need for introspection".