Who is ‘Nusheen’, the woman in Mithali Raj saga?

Coach Ramesh Powar’s explanation to the BCCI about the exclusion of Mithali Raj from the women’s team at the World Cup mentions a player named ‘Nusheen’. In the email, Powar says that Trupti Bhattacharya, the team manager, told him that Nusheen made an abusive and threatening call to her for ‘what you are doing with Mithali’.

Nusheen allegedly told Bhattacharya that Powar would face consequences for his treatment of Mithali. According to Powar’s email, Bhattacharya was deeply affected by Nusheen’s call and her mother was concerned about her well-being. Who is ‘Nusheen’? Is she Nooshin Al Khadeer, an offspinner and former teammate of Mithali? In 2003, she was the No. 1 bowler in the world in the women’s game. She has played five WTests, 78 WODIs and two WT20Is.



In the past few days, Nooshin has retweeted tweets by actor Rahul Dev and former Indian cricketers Madan Lal and Mohammad Kaif that were in support of Mithali. In her profile on Twitter, Nooshin says she is a ‘Former National Women Cricketer and Coach at the Chhattisgarh Cricket Association’. On November 24, she responded to an article quoting Mithali’s manager that accused T20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur of being a manipulative, lying cheat who did not deserve to be captain.

When ETPanache called the Chhattisgarh Cricket Association, an employee confirmed that Nooshin is a coach of the state women’s team. He said she was out of the state currently. Nooshin was unavailable for comment. Calls and texts were sent to Powar to confirm whether the person he referred to in his report was Nooshin al Khadeer. He, however, did not respond.