What really happened between Mithali Raj and Ramesh Powar?

One of the greatest women's cricketers of all time, Mithali Raj, who drew curtains on her glittering international career on June 8, once had a rough past with current Indian women’s cricket team’s head coach Ramesh Powar. 

Mithali, in an interview to India today, spoke about this phase of her life when she was removed from the team and her differences with coach Powar.

The differences between the coach and the captain had reached a tipping point after India’s exit from 2018 T20 World Cup. At one stage, Mithali and then Indian team’s T20I captain Harmanpreet Kaur had different meetings with BCCI CEO Rahul Johri. Power was also sacked as the coach after this. But he later returned to the role in May 2021.

What Happened?

It all started during the 2018 T20I World Cup when the newly-appointed interim coach Ramesh Powar had removed Mithali Raj from the team in the crucial semi-final match against England. India lost that match and was knocked out of the tournament. This was after Mithali had scored two match-winning fiftie in the tournament.

Mithali had then expressed her frustration on Powar accusing him of discrimination and bias. She wrote a letter to BCCI giving a detailed account of her differences with Powar.

What Powar said?

Powar had cited Mithali’s slow game and her lack of intent as reasons of her exclusion from the team. He had also said she was difficult to handle.

The action: The BCCI after having separate meetings with Mithali and then T-20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur had removed Powar as the coach. In December 2018, he was replaced by WV Raman.

But in May 2021, Powar was reappointed as the head coach of the team. Even when he was removed in 2018, he was backed by current head of Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC), Madan Lal. Lal was instrumental in bringing Powar as the head coach of women's cricket team.

The two came together again during the 2022 Women’s World Cup. India had a disappointing tournament as the team was knocked out in the early stages despite being the favorites to win it.

Mithali Raj had called quits on her T20I career in 2019 to focus on ODIs and T20s. She finally hung the boots on June 8 quitting all forms of international cricket.
In her 23-year glorious career, Mithali has scored 10,868 runs in all formats, the most my any woman cricketer in the world.