The Hug That Told a Thousand Stories: Harmanpreet Kaur and the Moment India Became World Champions

It wasn’t just the family that was rejoicing. The trophy was passed around to legends of the game who were present at the venue too. For Jhulan Goswami, India’s greatest bowler and a close friend to Harmanpreet from their time together with the Indian team as well as mentor-pupil at Mumbai Indians in the Women’s Premier League, her mind went back three years. In a must-win match against South Africa, with semifinals on the line, Harmanpreet took a catch off Deepti Sharma’s bowling, with 4 needed off 2 balls. As the umpire called a no ball, their hearts sank. Harmanpreet had her hands on her head, and in a few short minutes, she’d see India’s World Cup campaign come to an end.

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Goswami wasn’t playing that day; she could only watch as her World Cup career wound down. On Sunday, in Navi Mumbai, with tears streaming down her eyes as she adjusted her spectacles, she’d give Harmanpreet and Smriti Mandhana her signature bear hugs. “Smriti and Harman promised me that they would do it for me. In 2022, we weren’t able to qualify for the semifinals. After that, the two of them came to my room at midnight and they said, ‘We don’t know if you will be there in the next World Cup, but we will win that trophy for you’,” Goswami would say. They kept that promise, and, it was fulfilled with Harmanpreet taking a catch off Deepti’s bowling against South Africa.

Harmanpreet used the word destiny in the lead-up to the final. It was written in the stars that she’d have a hand to play in the moment that will now be etched forever in Indian cricket’s history. Leading India for the first time in an ODI World Cup, Harmanpreet’s many heartbreaks found the perfect closure in a packed stadium at a venue she calls home.

It’s not easy being Harmanpreet Kaur. Her journey began in Moga, Punjab. As her first coach Kamaldeesh Singh Sodhi remembers, it was a young girl wearing her school uniform with the dupatta tied around her waist, seriously troubling senior boys with her pace bowling at the Guru Nanak College ground, that caught his eye. Kamaldeesh then persuaded her father to let Harmanpreet train at a private academy where he was the coach, 30 kilometres away from Moga, and took care of the school fees as well.

When she burst onto the screen in 2009, she already had a reputation of being one of the cleanest ball-strikers India had seen. And she seemed to always reserve her best for World Cups. In 2013, she scored a fighting century against England — her first in the format — but it had come in a losing cause. In 2017, she smashed that immortal 171 to stun champions Australia. Even in the final, her half-century kept India on track for a win before a mighty collapse in the end. Ahead of 2017, working for a couple of years with coach Harshal Pathak in Pune — who speaks highly of how competitive and driven Harmanpreet has always been — refined her power game even further.

In the T20 format, 2018 began with a bang as Harmanpreet smashed the first century by an Indian woman in the format in the tournament opener, but it ended with drama and controversy around Mithali Raj’s place in the team. There was the heartbreak at MCG in front of over 80,000 fans in 2020 and the CWG 2022 near-miss as well.

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But nothing would come close to the 2023 T20 World Cup semifinal when Harmanpreet and Jemimah Rodrigues had India cruising towards a big win against Australia. “Honestly, until the team meeting, we didn’t even know whether she would play because she just kept it to herself,” Rodrigues had said about Harmanpreet, because she was unwell and her availability wasn’t clear. But when the two batted in the middle, Australia were under the pump. But Rodrigues fell first and then infamously Harmanpreet’s bat got stuck in the grass as she was completing a routine double. And India collapsed.

“When she lost the 2017 World Cup final, she was disappointed. But that time also, we told her that the whole world watched her innings and they will see her winning the World Cup someday. When the team lost the 2020 T20WC final against Australia, she would again be in tears. Post the loss in CWG final as well as the 2023 T20 World Cup semi-final loss against Australia, where she was run out with her bat being stuck outside the crease, we only talked about how India came close to the win, and it was only India that could give Australia a scare,” says her father.

Fast forward, a year-and-a-half, and this time Harmanpreet sat in the press conference room at DY Patil Stadium, still unable to find the right words to describe what this meant… but this time in joy. The next morning, speaking to the BCCI in a car while on her way to the captain’s trophy photoshoot, Harmanpreet said: “Even after sleeping only for 3-4 hours, I am feeling so fresh… When you win, when you become champions, (the high) you feel after that… that’s what I am feeling right now. Very relaxed, very humble. So grateful. It’s like magic…suddenly everything has fallen in place. Aur aaj finally hum World Champion ban chuke hain.” It took her 16 years to realise the winning feeling, and it was sweet, alright.

(With Inputs from Nitin Sharma)

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