Batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar has joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi in praising the Indian women’s cricket team, which recently finished runners-up in the ICC World Cup in England.
Modi said on this week’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ that the Mithali Raj-led side may have lost the World Cup, but they managed to win the hearts of 125 crore people.
“My thoughts resonate with those of our PM @narendramodi shared on #MannKiBaat regd my fellow Indian women cricketers’ exemplary performance,” Tendulkar posted on his Twitter handle after the programme.
The Prime Minister in his address, said he could feel their pain at losing the final against England by a narrow margin of nine runs at Lord’s.
{{/usCountry}}The Prime Minister in his address, said he could feel their pain at losing the final against England by a narrow margin of nine runs at Lord’s.
{{/usCountry}}“Our women cricketers did us proud at the recently-concluded Women’s World Cup. I got a chance to meet them this week and I felt really nice talking to them. But I sensed that they felt really bad for not winning the World Cup,” Modi said.
“They looked tense. But I told them about my own assessment that this is a media driven world and expectations from players are hyped manifold. And when these expectations aren’t met, they turn in aggression.
READ | Mithali Raj, the ‘Captain Cool’ who reads Rumi, is India’s new sporting icon
“We have seem many instances where if our team loses, the whole country is enraged. In fact, what hurts the most is when few people cross their limits and go on to say and write very shameful things,” he added.
He further said: “But this is the first instance when the country stood together with our team when they couldn’t lift the title. Not just this, but the entire nation lauded the performance of these athletes as well.
“I see this as a pleasant change. And I also told them that they are lucky to have this kind of support. It doesn’t matter that you couldn’t win the title as you have won the hearts of 125 crore people,” Modi added.