Indian women’s cricket team coach Tushar Arothe resigned on Tuesday after his position became untenable due to alleged differences with some of the star players, who had protested against his training methods.
“The BCCI on Tuesday accepted India women’s team coach Mr. Tushar Arothe’s resignation. Mr. Arothe cited personal reasons behind his resignation and thanked the BCCI for giving him an opportunity to work with the Indian women’s cricket team,” the BCCI said in a media release.
However, a senior BCCI official said that Arothe was forced to resign after a few senior players, with reasonable influence, wanted his immediate ouster.
“It was almost final after the last meeting of COA with the senior players. BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary, GM (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim and CEO Rahul Johri were also present. There has been adverse reports about his coaching methods from players, selectors and even the team manager,” a senior BCCI official, said on the condition of anonymity.
COA member Diana Edulji, a former India captain, is currently calling the shots as far as women’s cricket is concerned.
While BCCI didn’t divulge names, it has been learnt that ODI captain Mithali Raj and Twenty20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur did not have good things to say about Arothe’s coaching methods when the BCCI bigwigs sought their feedback.
Arothe, who was a Baroda stalwart with an experience of 114 first-class games, had guided the team to the 50-over World Cup final in England last year.
The Indian team also won ODI and T20 series in South Africa in February this year but things went downhill since then. India had a dismal T20 tri-series against England and Australia and then lost the ODI series against the Southern Stars. One of the major reason of discontent was Arothe’s training methods. While the coach was keen on having two practice sessions of two and half hours each in morning and afternoon, some of the seniors in their mid 30s were finding it difficult to cope with strenuous schedule.
