Indian women's cricket team vice-captain Smriti Mandhana on Sunday clarified that her wedding with filmmaker and music composer Palash Muchhal was "called off", and that it was "time to move forward".
Addressing the rumours swirling around her highly anticipated marriage over the past few weeks with an Instagram Story, she explained that she is a "very private person", and would like to "keep it that way".
"I would like to close this matter here and implore all of you to do the same," she said, not offering any reason behind the cancellation. Mandhana also requested that the privacy of both families be respected.
"Allow us the space to process and move on at our own pace."
However, she may have indicated that the wedding would be cancelled in an advertisement reel posted to her Instagram feed on Saturday.
Fans were quick to point out her missing wedding ring and saddened voice in the mini-interview for Colgate, which revolved around the Indian women's team winning the World Cup last month, and oral health.
In the meantime, Mandhana has also resolved to focus on her "higher purpose": playing cricket for India at the highest levels for as long as she could.
What we know so far
Smriti Mandhana's highly anticipated wedding with Palash Muchhal was said to be postponed after her father, Shrinivas, was suddenly admitted to the hospital with "heart attack-like" symptoms on November 23. Soon after, Palash was also admitted to the hospital with viral fever.
However, things went for a toss after she removed all wedding-related posts from her Instagram profile—around the time that netizens and the media began speculating if the wedding had been called off.
Rumours about Muchhal cheating on Smriti quickly intensified after a woman named Mary D'Costa released screenshots of his cheating chats with a choreographer.
Following backlash, D'Costa later admitted that she was neither involved with Muchhal, nor was she the choreographer. This led to rumours about Nandika Dwivedi being the choreographer that he cheated with.
Later on, when Smriti and Palash both put nazar (evil eye) emojis on their Instagram bios—and when Palash's relatives said that the wedding was only postponed—that fans hoped things were resolved, and that the wedding might take place on December 7.
