India captain Harmanpreet Kaur has no regrets over her actions during a fractious third ODI against Bangladesh in Dhaka last month, despite having received a two-match ban for them.
"I will not say that I regret anything because at the end of the day as a player you want to see that fair things are happening. As a player you always have the right to express yourself and what you're feeling," she told The Cricket Paper on the sidelines of the Women's Hundred, where she is playing for Trent Rockets.
"I don't think I said anything wrong to any player or any person. I just said what happened on the field. I don't regret anything."
During the Dhaka ODI, Harmanpreet made her displeasure with the umpiring clear: she reacted to her dismissal by smashing the stumps with her bat, and went on to call the umpiring "pathetic" at the post-match presentation. When players from the two teams posed for end-of-series photographs, Harmanpreet is understood to have shouted out, "bring the umpires too", suggesting they had been part of the Bangladesh team.
Harmanpreet received three demerit points for "showing dissent at an umpiring decision" and one more for "public criticism" of match officials, apart from fines of 50% and 25% of her match fee for the two offences. When a player reaches a total of four or more demerit points within a 24-month period, those points are converted to suspension points, i.e. a ban from one Test, two ODIs or two T20Is, depending on which comes first in the player's schedule.
Harmanpreet, as a result, will miss the first two matches of India's campaign at the Asian Games T20 competition in Hanghzou in September-October.
Following the incident, BCCI secretary Jay Shah had said BCCI president Roger Binny and National Cricket Academy director of cricket VVS Laxman would have a word with Harmanpreet.