“I want to sleep with you,” Anaya Bangar, the trans-daughter of former Indian cricketer and coach Sanjay Bangar, was told by a senior cricketer who made lewd offers during her transition from Aryan.
In a recent interview with the Lallantop, Anaya revealed a pattern of ‘toxic masculinity’ in the cricket world, and shared that she was subjected to harassment to the point where cricketers would ask her for nudes, and make sexual advances.
“There have been a few cricketers who randomly sent me nude pictures of themselves,” Anaya told Lallantop host Saurabh Dwivedi.
She then described a person who would verbally abuse her “in front of everybody” and would later “ask for my photos”.
Sharing another instance of sexual harassment, Anaya said, “I told a puraane (senior) cricketer about my situation. He told me ‘Let’s go in your car, I want to sleep with you’.”
Anaya did not name the cricketer in the interview. However, she hinted that the harassment incident was at Yeshvi Cricket Academy in Pune.
Before undergoing a hormonal replacement therapy and gender reaffirming surgery, Anayahad played cricket with well-known cricketers like Yashasvi Jaiswal, Musheer Khan and Sarfaraz Khan.
She shared that her journey had not been easy from the very beginning.
“I had to maintain secrecy about myself because my dad is a well-known figure. The cricket world is filled with insecurity and toxic masculinity,” she said.
‘I want to be a girl’
Anaya Bangar shared that very early in her life, she would ask herself, “Am I in the wrong chosen gender?” She said she was eight or nine years old, when she “used to pick clothes from my mom’s cupboard and wear them”.
“Then, I used to look into the mirror and say, ‘I am a girl. I want to be a girl’,” Anaya told Lallantop.
Anaya Bangar cricket career
Like her father Sanjay, Anaya Bangar represented Islam Gymkhana in local club cricket. She was a left-handed batter and played for the Hinckley Cricket Club in Leicestershire.
However, in November 2023, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said transgender athletes would not be allowed to play women’s cricket to “protect the integrity” of the game.
“Inclusivity is incredibly important to us as a sport, but our priority was to protect the integrity of the international women’s game and the safety of players,” ICC CEO Geoff Allardice said.
