Harmanpreet or Smriti: Who should lead India to LA28?

At the end of the T20 World Cup in England, much was said about why India should look at Smriti Mandhana as captain going into LA28.

Harmanpreet Kaur has done the job for a decade, and India’s performances in the last two editions of the tournament have been below par. While India won the 50-over World Cup under Harmanpreet in 2025, the T20 performances have not been up to the mark. cricket-ipl.in

An infusion of fresh ideas seemed the logical way forward, particularly with the Olympics just two years away. Does Harmanpreet inspire confidence in the T20 format as captain to guide India to an Olympic medal? That is the question that needs to be asked.

Thereafter, India won the Lord’s Test under Harmanpreet and, as is always the case, the issue was swept under the carpet. A Test-match win became the mask for the T20 World Cup failure, and once again formats were mixed up by fans back home.

Now, with India doing well in the Asia Cup – a below-par competition featuring weaker teams – there is every reason to assume that we will enter what I call an ‘illusion of complacency’. Not winning the Asia Cup would be news. Anything else is routine. No team in the competition comes close to India, and it cannot be used as a yardstick.

In 10 days, India will play at the Asian Games. Yet again, the same teams currently in Dubai will be in Japan. Yet again, it will be easy. And yet again, the real issues could be glossed over with a gold medal.

This is where the problem lies. We cannot mask things with these easy wins. India will be tested again during the Champions Trophy, and the questions will return. Only valuable time would have been lost.

Harmanpreet the batter remains key for India. Her effort in the last match of the T20 World Cup at Lord’s was proof of that. She played brilliantly against Australia, and there is no replacement for her just yet.

But as captain, there was little to feel good about. The question is whether the selectors will look at competitions such as the Asia Cup and Asian Games when making a long-term call. Isn’t Olympic gold the goal?

Can this team, under Harmanpreet, inspire confidence that it can accomplish that mission?

As captain, Smriti has done well. She has been a standout for RCB, and the titles tell their own story. For India, I have seen her step up time and again to do the job. In a 50-over contest, for example, she has often led when Harmanpreet has gone off the field.

The truth is that Smriti is ready and deserves a chance. If she has to build a team for LA, she will need time to settle into the role and make the most of it.

In this catch-22, all that matters is what is best for India. The Asia Cup and Asian Games will not truly test India, and the selectors need to remember that before making the call.

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There has been a lot of talk about India’s hockey jersey over the last month and a half. The matter had become acutely political ahead of the World Cup, with many blaming the government for choosing orange over blue. Going into the Asian Games, the jersey is back in focus once more, and it is important to close this debate once and for all.

As you can see from the photos, Indian players have been given two sets of jerseys to take to Nagoya. The second set is orange or reddish-orange, which was used at the World Cup in the Netherlands and Belgium. The primary set, however, which was approved by Hockey India officials and the head coach of the team on 12 August 2026, is white, with sky-blue socks, shorts and sleeves.

The white and sky-blue combination is the primary jersey that India will wear in Aichi-Nagoya at the Asian Games. While it is not entirely blue, it does feature sky blue on the socks, sleeves and shorts.

It is important to state here that jerseys will not win us the Asian Games. Performance will. The teams need to win gold in Japan to ensure they qualify for the 2028 LA Olympics.

For the first time, the women also have a very realistic chance of beating China and winning gold. The men, on the other hand, need to redeem themselves after a poor World Cup campaign and make it back to the top of the podium in Japan. In doing so, they need to stay focused, and the jersey controversy going forward is unnecessary.

That is why it was important to show the two sets of jerseys that India will wear and put the issue to rest once and for all.

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Joe Root has insisted it's "disrespectful" to accuse Pakistan of showing "no fight" with the tourists on the brink of suffering a Test series whitewash by his England side. England head into the third Test at Edgbaston starting Wednesday with an unbeatable 2-0 up in a three-match series after mammoth wins at Headingley and Lord's.

Last week, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) took the extraordinary step of sending seven players home after the second Test and sacking Test coach Sarfaraz Ahmed, with white-ball boss Mike Hesson replacing him. Seven players have been added to the Pakistan squad, five of whom have yet to make their Test debuts ahead of the series finale in Birmingham.

The team has been labelled one of the worst Pakistan cricket sides in decades. Root, during his pre-match press conference at Edgbaston on Tuesday, was asked what it was like to face opponents offering "no fight", with Pakistan yet to make 200 in four innings so far this series against a revamped England pace quartet of Ollie Robinson, Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue and Gus Atkinson. England captain Root took issue with the question, saying it was "disrespectful" to both sides.

"Absolutely we have found (Pakistan) a challenge," Root said, even though England thrashed Pakistan by an innings and 103 runs at Headingley, before inflicting a 194-run defeat upon the tourists at Lord's. "I think that's a bit disrespectful to both Pakistan as a team and to us as a team," added Root, in his second spell as full-time England skipper following the shock international retirement of Ben Stokes.

"I don't think we've allowed them to get into games because of how well we've played as well and how quickly we've read the situations and the surfaces that we've had. "I think it's very easy to say one team is excellent and one team is poor. Normally it's somewhere in the middle."

"If one team has been outstanding then the other team can't have been poor and vice-versa. I think it's important to live in that middle area somewhere and understand that that's not how it is. "Regardless of what's happened over the last two games, this week it's a completely different proposition for us. "There's a very talented group of players in that dressing room and you've got to be ready for it, so we'll make sure that we are."

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We use the word “factory” rather loosely in Indian sport. Talent factory. Medal factory. Champion factory. As though athletes arrive at one end of an assembly line and emerge at the other wearing India colours and carrying medals. An afternoon at the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy in Gachibowli, Hyderabad, alongside Boria Majumdar, was enough to dispel that notion. It was equal parts humbling and inspiring.

And at the centre of it all was Gopi. At 52, Pullela Gopichand still seems to possess the fitness, energy and drive of a teenager. He runs the institution with an iron hand, his affection for his wards carefully concealed beneath the visage of the passionate disciplinarian. You sense that he cares enormously. You also sense that he would rather they discovered that through what he demands of them than through what he says.

Sitting in his office, looking through the glass windows onto the world-class badminton courts, we watched something extraordinary unfold. It was a guru taking his disciples through their lessons. Gopi stood on one side of the net, an elbow loaded with more than 30 shuttles tucked neatly against his body. Then they began to fly from his racquet with the ease of an accomplished magician pulling tricks from a hat.

One shuttle demanded a delicate touch at the net. The next forced the player backwards to retrieve and lob from deep court. Another was fired low, under the net, simulating a vicious smash that had to be rescued with the slightest flick of the wrist. Forward. Back. Bend. Stretch. Recover. Anticipate. React. Again. And again. And again.

It was less a badminton drill than a theatrical performance… efficacy of movement combining with the elegance of ballet. A group of young girls rotated through different modules under the watchful eyes of the Guru. Gopi missed almost nothing. A word of encouragement here. A sharp expression of displeasure there. The body movement wasn’t right. The chest hadn’t opened enough to generate power in the smash. Someone had shrunk into the shot and lost leverage. These were details invisible to most of us. To Gopi, they were everything.

And perhaps that is how champions are made: not through one spectacular intervention but through a million tiny corrections, repeated until they become instinct. There was something surreal about watching these young athletes. Somewhere among them, you wondered, might be a future Indian champion. Perhaps an Olympic medallist. Perhaps someone whose name we don’t know today but will chant a few years from now.

Then, almost as if to complete the picture, Gayatri Gopichand and Treesa Jolly trudged in.

Fresh from their recent BWF success, surely there would be some latitude for the established stars? Not quite. The Guru put them through their paces with pretty much the same intensity and scrutiny as everyone else.

That perhaps explains Pullela Gopichand better than any citation can. And there have been plenty of those. He is the winner of India’s second-highest civilian honour, another milestone in an extraordinary journey from All England champion to the architect of a badminton ecosystem that has produced some of India’s greatest sporting names.

Yet watching him on court, honours seem almost incidental. Because what we witnessed in Gachibowli wasn’t a factory at all. Factories manufacture identical products. This place painstakingly shapes individuals. It combines science with repetition, discipline with intuition, toughness with care and ambition with extraordinary attention to detail. It is a temple of learning. And presiding over it, shuttles tucked under one arm, racquet in the other and those sharp eyes missing absolutely nothing, is Indian badminton’s remarkable high priest.

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Women’s Asia Cup 2026 BAN-W vs UAE-W Highlights: Nigar Sultana-led Bangladesh secured a 34-run victory against Esha Oza-led United Arab Emirates in the 12th match played at Dubai International Stadium, Dubai.

Women’s Asia Cup 2026 BAN-W vs UAE-W Playing 11

Bangladesh Women

United Arab Emirates Women

Esha Oza(c), Theertha Satish(w), Lavanya Keny, Heena Hotchandani, Samaira Dharnidharka, Rinitha Rajith, Mehul Pranav Kulkarni, Indhuja Nandakumar, Archara Supriya, Janani Thirukkumaran, Suraksha Kotte

Women’s Asia Cup 2026 BAN-W vs UAE-W Scoreboard

Women’s Asia Cup 2026 BAN-W vs UAE-W Scorecard

Bangladesh Women Batting

United Arab Emirates Bowling

United Arab Emirates Women Batting

Bangladesh Women Bowling

Women’s Asia Cup 2026 BAN-W vs UAE-W Highlights

To watch Women’s Asia Cup 2026 BAN-W vs UAE-W Highlights, click >> HERE

Player of the Match

Nahida Akhter | Bangladesh

Thanks to Almighty, we won the match and definitely Player of the Match is good for me. At that time, I knew my role, and my coach told me my role, and I knew Shorna Akter was there. So it was easy for me to bat. No, we were 20 runs short. Still, we believed our batsmen could do better, and we knew our bowling strength.