By Vinayakk Mohanarangan
As she completed a running catch, spread her wings and started to scorch the outfield at DY Patil Stadium at the stroke of a November midnight, Harmanpreet Kaur — with her own two hands — ended years of heartbreak she endured. A major trophy isn’t won by one player or in one moment, but those few seconds will be replayed over and over for years and decades to come as the Indian women’s cricket team made history by defeating South Africa to lift the World Cup.
And after being at the heart of many a heartbreak in the past, it felt fitting that Kaur was central to India’s triumph.
“After taking that catch, I was just holding the ball and running. I didn’t know what to do, actually. I can’t express the feeling of that moment in words. Aisa laga ki bas baagthe rahoon. Abhi koi rokhe na (I just felt like running non-stop and no one stops me),” the Indian captain would tell ICC a few hours later, posing with the trophy at the Gateway of India.
Kaur’s journey to the World Cup
Cricket was destined for Kaur. The story of her parents getting her a tiny yellow shirt after she was born, with the words ‘Good Batting’ inscribed on it, is now part of the folklore. That little girl from Moga, Punjab, had already done her fair share to break glass ceilings in this sport. But somehow, that career-defining glory moment kept evading her. Some of the greatest Indian cricketers have not been able to lift the World Cup — Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami — so not winning this title wouldn’t have diminished Kaur’s eventual legacy. However, few in Indian cricket have come so close yet remained so far from experiencing that winning feeling.
At the 2017 ODI World Cup, she played the innings that truly redefined the women’s game in India, smashing that 171 not out against the mighty Australians in the semifinal. Then in the final, when she was in the middle, victory was in sight at Lord’s before an inexplicable batting collapse crushed those dreams. At the 2020 T20 World Cup, having beaten Australia in the group stages, Kaur saw her team crumble in front of 80,000+ fans at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The worst of all came in 2023 at the T20 World Cup semifinal, also against Australia.
Previous heartbreaks
When Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues were anchoring the run-chase, a famous win seemed imminent against Meg Lanning’s serial winners. India needed just 41 off 33 balls, and the way Kaur was batting — on a day where she came to the ground not knowing whether she’d be fit enough to play because of high fever — the finish line was well within sight. However, while attempting to complete a second run, her bat got stuck on the green grass just outside the crease, and she was run out in the most bizarre manner. It led to another Indian collapse on the big stage.
After the match, she came to the presentation ceremony wearing thick shades so as to hide the tears. In the press conference, she’d choke up towards the end, as she uttered the words: “Ek hangover mein baithi hoon.” Which is why Kaur and her deputy, her trusted lieutenant Smriti Mandhana, both recalled after the win in Navi Mumbai of all the near misses they had faced. Mandhana wryly joked that they were tired of mending their hearts. Kaur, now sitting with the trophy in the press conference after all these years, said she felt somewhat numb, but this wasn’t in sadness. It still hadn’t sunk in what she and her team achieved at the end of a rollercoaster campaign during which they stuttered, stumbled, but came out victorious, together, led by the skipper’s firm self-belief that this was written in the stars.
“It’s been a month now, but whenever I’m trying to calm myself or relax, someone or the other reminds me of the win,” Kaur reflected at an event in Mumbai recently, seated next to Rohit Sharma, who was in attendance in Navi Mumbai and soaked in the moments that had eluded his team in Ahmedabad almost exactly two years earlier.
“Even a few minutes back, Rohit was telling me how frustrated he was (at not winning the 2023 ODI WC at home) even though he had already won a World T20 already (in 2007). That wait, you know? Now imagine how many years we waited and how frustrated we were. Then finally, we achieved it. I still don’t want to come out of that moment. Day and night, that moment is running in my mind.”
Towards the closing stages of the match, she kept putting her hands next to her heart, forcing herself to be calm as things got tense. As someone who has always worn her heart on her sleeve on the cricket field, it wasn’t hard to read her body language to gauge how much she wanted this, for her, for her teammates, and for the legends who paved the way to get here. And that’s why the running Kaur moment, forged in years of heartbreak, will stand the test of time in Indian cricket.