More out of desperation than determination, Harmanpreet Kaur threw the ball in the direction of Shafali Verma. Until last week, she was in Surat with the Haryana team and was called up to the squad only due to an injury to Pratika Rawal, one of India’s World Cup stars.
Now, under tension-filled skies, the 21-year-old – who had scored 87 runs earlier in the day – faced a far sterner test. Laura Wolfhardt and Son Los were stifling India’s chances. With the match out of their hands, Harmanpreet turned to Shafali – the last unlikely hope to turn the tide. I did that, and more.
In two successive overs, Shafali picked two wickets that broke South Africa’s resistance and brought the momentum back in India’s favour. A few hours later, the Indian players – who had beaten South Africa by 52 runs and won their first ever World Cup – lifted the trophy aloft and all doubts were blown away in confetti.
Thus ended decades of hurt. In images that bore an eerie resemblance to the 1983 men’s final, the India captain was running backwards to catch the ball that marked the final winning moment. This moment, is no less important.
This World Cup has not only been India’s most dominant campaign, but its most humane. The players were not afraid to show their weakness off the field. They faltered early, were precise finishers, and endured the kind of pressure that had broken teams before them.
This time, however, when collapse loomed, someone always stood up, and the fans – from Guwahati to Vizag, from Indore to Navi Mumbai – were given a new name to sing along to, a new anthem to unleash each time.
Shafali, the spunky teen from Rohtak who cut her hair short just to sneak into the boys’ nets, fought as if the world owed her one last blast. Deepti Sharma, the meticulous all-rounder from Agra, who once traveled twelve kilometers a day just to train, and now has a street in the Taj Mahal city named after her, infuses chaos with discipline. Amanjot Kaur, the unassuming 25-year-old who was not allowed to play by the boys in her neighborhood and who had suffered taunts from her father, lit up the field with a scintillating run and Wolfhardt’s match-winning catch. And Richa Ghosh, still barely a teenager, from the cricket-free streets of Siliguri, kept smiling through every crisis, stress turned into theatre; Her powerful, nonchalant hitting propelled India to a defensible total in Sunday’s final.
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Together, they not only won the World Cup; They have rewritten the story of what Indian cricket can look like: bold, unafraid and finally complete. On a night that seemed bigger than victory, the women, who once had to claim space on the dusty training ground, lifted the sport’s most iconic trophy. For the first time, the country did not compare, but rather erupted in unison.
In 2013, the last time India hosted the Women’s ODI World Cup, the Board of Control for Cricket in India moved matches from the Wankhede Stadium to a modest ground without seating capacity in Bandra as it wanted to host the Ranji Trophy final at the famous venue.
On Sunday, more than 35,000 fans – children, women and men – dressed in blue filled the stands of the DY Patel Stadium long before the first ball was bowled to watch Harmanpreet & Co. do what no Indian team has done before.
This victory was not cobbled together in floodlit academies or manicured pitches. It was built in small towns, on uneven pitches, by girls who refused to stop dreaming when cricket itself refused to look their way.
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Harmanpreet’s journey – forever the bridge between the generation that begs for opportunities and the generation that expects them – from games in Punjab’s backyard to the World Cup this is the story of Indian women’s cricket in microcosm – improvisation, endurance and a constant desire to be taken seriously. She led as someone who knew that history had already taken a long time; Tonight was an exorcism of the sadness of the past – in 2017, 2020 and 2023. Polished but quietly stubborn, Jemima’s rise became a symbol of what a professional Indian cricketer could look like: confident, self-sufficient, unafraid of the camera or the scoreboard.
If the men’s game has grown thanks to infrastructure and institutional support, the women’s game has grown thanks to intention. For years, they played in front of empty stands, often without a live broadcast, rehearsing for lights that might never arrive. But when it finally happened — on a rainy day and the start was delayed by two hours — they were ready.
What this win does for women’s cricket in India goes beyond the trophy cabinet. It rewires perception. For decades, the women’s game has been a polite side story to the men’s scene — inspiring, yes, but marginal. Tonight, as Rohit Sharma and Sachin Tendulkar watched from the stands, they stand on equal footing, perhaps stealing the emotional essence of Indian sport for a generation that wants new champions.
At that stage under the bright lights, when Harmanpreet lifted the trophy and Smriti wiped away his tears, it was not just about making history, it was about restoring balance. Women who were once footnotes are now the headlines. A sport that once ignored them now belongs to them.
(Marks for translation) India’s first Women’s World Cup win
