The left-handed stylish batsman of Indian women’s cricket team Smriti Mandhana is currently playing in the ongoing five-match T20I series in West Indies.
A photoshopped picture of her is going viral on the internet and her fans were furious about it. However, since she is not in India, she might not be aware of the buzz that it is creating.
Since ICC World Cup 2017, Mandhana has scored plenty of runs with her stylish batting, gaining several fans across the world. She has been declared as the national crush by social media because of her smile and good looks. However, this controversy was raised by one of the Twitter users named Chethana.
When she was searching for Smriti Mandhana on Google, she accidentally saw her photoshopped picture on a website. She also uploaded a collage and the original picture which was taken from one of her press conference’s footage. In the original image, Smriti Mandhana has been clicked without makeup, but in the photoshopped one, we can see her wearing kajal and lipstick.
Very soon, Twitterati expressed their disappointment over the beauty standards and elaborated a few points.
Here are the tweets:-
Was Googling Smriti Mandhana and came across this photoshopped image. Actual image on the right, for context.
How fucked up are beauty standards if a cricketer's photo in a press meet is being photoshopped to lighten her skin tone and add kajal and lipstick. pic.twitter.com/KKbmKyYf13
— chethana (@iamdatemike) November 12, 2019
People saying – "oh she's still beautiful", that's not the point.
You're reinforcing what this stupid photoshopped image stands for.
The point of this is to show that even a Google image of an athlete has to be photoshopped to match some arbitrary standard of beauty….
— chethana (@iamdatemike) November 12, 2019
… you saying "um don't understand the need for photoshop, she's still beautiful" = same emphasis on "beauty" that is the problem in the first place.
— chethana (@iamdatemike) November 12, 2019
Strong comeback
After India lost a home series against South Africa. Smriti Mandhana made a strong comeback in West Indies. Unfortunately, she did not play in the first two ODIs. She made her entry in a decider match and scored an impressive knock of 63-ball 74 and remained the top scorer of the match.
As far as her photoshopped image controversy is concerned, the fans also expressed their disappointment and questioned the need to edit her picture.
Here is how the fans reacted:
What the actual fuck. https://t.co/BYUiqoNeo0
— Paulami Sen (@Paulami309) November 13, 2019
Eewwww. Why are we the way we are? https://t.co/RHHR2zWGIZ
— RandomCricketPhotos&Videos (@RandomCricketP1) November 12, 2019
This society needs mental check up. 😑😑 https://t.co/j5QchHUVuC
— Anshu Kamal (@kamalanshu) November 12, 2019
