To ensure Women’s World Cup winner Amanjot Kaur doesn’t lose focus, her family doesn’t tell her about her grandmother’s heart attack | Cricket news

“My mother Bhagwanti has been Amanjot’s pillar of strength since the day she started playing cricket outside in the street and garden of her Phase 5 residence in Mohali. While I was at my carpentry shop in Pallonji, she would make sure to sit outside the house or in the garden to supervise Amanjot playing with the boys as well as other girls. After she had a heart attack last month, we did not tell Amanjot about it and the last few days have seen us spending time in hospitals receiving… The treatment has definitely been a balm in these difficult times for us.”

While Amanjot started out as a skater and hockey player, she also played cricket in her Mohali neighborhood. Since Amanjot spends most of her time playing cricket, Singh was looking for an academy for his daughter after an older neighbor suggested the father take his daughter for professional training in 2016. At an academy in Chandigarh, the school asked Amanjot to score first before coach Nagesh Gupta took Amanjot under his wings. This was in the government school in Sector 32.

“When I met Mr. Nagesh, he told me to send Amanjot to the government school ground in Sector 32. I will do extra work in my shop or private work as well so that I can give Amanjot everything she needs for her training and I will also pick her and drop her to the academy in Chandigarh from Mohali. Later, we get her a scooter and she will tell me, ‘Papa chinta che karne. My main vadi ho jae han (Papa, don’t worry, she’s grown up now),” Singh recalls.

Gupta, now a BCCI Tier 2 coach, will see Amanjot rise through the ranks of the Chandigarh cricket circuit. Amanjot will move to the newly formed BCCI affiliate Chandigarh in 2019. Amanjot will score 370 runs for UTCA in the BCCI Senior One Day Trophy in the 2019-20 season apart from scoring over 457 runs in the BCCI U-23 One Day Trophy in the same season and also scoring 184 runs and claiming ten wickets in the BCCI U-23. T20 Trophy followed by India A call-up.

“When she first came to the academy, I impressed with her tracking and her wrist position. She had good pace too and kept her arms close during the lead-up. But her bowling was a bit erratic. So we worked with the instant bowling and made slight changes in her wrist position and changed her leg position which was falling wider than the stumps. During that period, I saw her hit one over in the nets and the bat to the ball was very good. So, it was very good,” Gupta told The Indian. Express: “She knew she could become a multi-talented player, and she did not hesitate to train, and this helped her at the beginning of her career.”

In 2022, Amanjot moved to Punjab again and the last three years saw her make her international debut with a Lady of the Match award in her maiden WT20I match against South Africa in the Tri-Series in South Africa in 2023, apart from being selected in the WPL auction by Mumbai Indians in the 2023 auction. However, a year later, she suffered a back injury and a hand ligament injury which kept her out for over eight months.

“We knew she had to get her strength back after recovery and she had to be mentally calm,” Gupta recalls.

Amanjot scored a half-century against Sri Lanka coming on at number 7 with the team putting on 124 for 6 in India’s World Cup opener and also took the all-important wicket of centurion Phoebe Litchfield in the semi-final against Australia. Gupta also talks about how batting up and down the order early in her career helped Amanjot and how she worked on adding more variations in her bowling. “Early in her career, Amanjot would sometimes come in at 5-6 or sometimes go up the order. We were working on her side game as one requires that when turning wickets as well.

As for Singh, he knows it will be a long night for his family including his wife Ranjit Kaur and Amanjot’s siblings Kamaljot Kaur and Gurkirpal Singh as they take turns overseeing his mother’s health. “My mother is Amanjot’s biggest supporter and once she gets better, she will make sure Amanjot gets all the love and celebration for the win,” Singh said.