Imagine being 22 years old.
Representing your state in cricket.
Far from home, in Agartala, chasing a dream.
And then… the people who were supposed to protect you become the threat.
This is the story unfolding inside the Meghalaya Cricket Association right now.
The U-23 women's team was in Tripura for a tournament.
Complaints of sexual harassment were filed against the coach and the team manager.
What happened next?
Nothing.
No inquiry. No protection. No escalation.
The complaints were quietly buried — allegedly by the MCA's own honorary secretary.
The Meghalaya State Commission for Women stepped in.
Chairperson Iamonlang Syiem investigated.
The verdict: the allegations were true.
And the MCA? Torn apart for failing the very players it was meant to safeguard.
On Saturday, MCA president and Rajya Sabha MP James P.K. Sangma announced the action everyone had been waiting for:
Here's the part that should make every sports body in India squirm.
The MCA didn't even have an Internal Complaints Committee.
The one thing made mandatory by the POSH Act.
The one structure designed exactly for moments like this.
Missing. Absent. Never formed.
Sangma, who took charge only in March, called it a "serious lapse" and promised to fast-track its formation. He's also distancing the new leadership from former president Naba Bhattacharjee and two other ex-officials — who escape internal action simply because they no longer hold office.
Lifetime bans are loud.
But they're also a confession.
A confession that for six months, young women cricketers carried a weight the system refused to share.
That the structures meant to protect them existed only on paper.
That silence almost won.
Sports federations love talking about building champions.
Maybe it's time they start with something smaller.
A functioning complaints committee.
And the courage to use it on day one — not month six.
That's all for now!
