No roses for Princess Diana

Consider this scenario. The captain of a team is watching her wards bat in the middle. An off spinner delivers a ball on the stumps that turns and slips down leg. The wicketkeeper gloves the ball, whips the bails off and appeals for the stumping. Not out says the umpire. The captain yells from the dressing room at decibel levels audible to everyone at the ground "Umpire, leg side stumping: that's a wide" For good measure she follows it up with "Six inches outside leg stump is a wide, umpire." All this from the dressing room which is square of the wicket. To judge the line of a delivery from that position would be nigh on impossible.

The match progresses towards the end of the first innings. Her team is still batting. She looks at her watch eagerly, waiting for the time allotted for the bowling of 50 overs is finished. As soon as the time comes, she begins exorting the umpires to signal to the official scorer. Little does she know that the umpire has already made the required signal. She also does not take into consideration the time spent in treating a player who was injured.

The innings is over and it's time for this captain to take the field. A left hander from the opposite team is trying hard to cut an off spinner away. She plays and misses more than once and loud shouts for catches behind the wicket ensue. Finally, many balls later one such attempted cut shot results in a nick. The umpire upholds the appeal. What does this captain do? Walk up to the umpire and congratulate him. Needless to say, he is not impressed.

All this within four days of the tournament starting. The tournament in question is the CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy. The captain in question is a doyen of women's cricket in India, Diana Eduljee.

When promising young players were asked about their idols, most of them named Diana Eduljee. Yet, Diana chooses to make herself increasingly unpopular. She is in a position where she can promote the game like no one else. Having been at the top of the game fopr many many years now, she could easily be women's cricket's greatest ambassador in India. Yet she chooses to bring to the game some of the ills that plague men's cricket. Sledging and gamesmanship (notice the term gameswomanship has not been coined yet) to name two. Her team, the Indian Railways is one of the best in the country. Is that despite the fact that they sledge hard at the opposition or in some way because of it? Either way, the game ends up being the loser.

In her early forties, she's still fit and bowls a mean spell of left arm spin. Unfortunately, she also still continues to take no prisoners and make no friends.