India women opener Smriti Mandhana stated that her team respects the decision of Punam Raut walking out of despite the umpire Phillip Gillespie shaking his head on day two of the one-off Test against Australia in Metricon Stadium on Friday.
India women dominated the first two days of the Pink-ball Test, they were at 276/5 at the end of Day 2.
“First we reacted, like, ‘Oh, why did she do that?’ But, then, of course, it’s something that we all respect a lot. I think she has earned a lot of respect from all the team-mates that she actually walked out. And I don’t know how many people would actually do that in cricket at the moment – men’s or women’s,” said Smriti to reporters after the day’s play was brought to a close due to rain.
“Nowadays people walk out because there is DRS. But when there is no DRS and to walk out, I don’t know. So, definitely she has earned a lot of respect from us, but, yeah, the first reaction was, ‘Oh, was it actually an edge or why did she walk?’ That was out first reaction,” added Smriti.
When the Punam walk-off question was put to Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry, she said, “Yeah, there seem to be a really faint edge. That’s very much at her discretion whether or not she wanted to walk. And she did so, I suppose so from our point of view it’s just acknowledging that. Besides that, there wasn’t too much conversation about it.”
When batter Beth Mooney was asked by the commentators whether she would have walked, she instantly replied, “Nup, no chance.”
Punam was playing her first game in the Australian tour as she didn’t featured in the ODI series.
