Dambulla, Jul 23 (IANS): Indian women’s cricket team has had a flier of a start to the 2024 Women's Asia Cup having won their opening encounters against Pakistan and UAE with conviction and is set to face Nepal in their third group match.
Ahead of their final group stage encounter, Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur has opened up on what cricket means to her and said she would have been nothing without cricket in her life.
“Cricket, I think, is everything to me. Without cricket, I don't think I would be anything. The name that cricket has given me, no other field could have given it to me. So I think, for me, cricket is like a god. Whatever I dreamt of in my childhood, whatever I dreamt of while playing, everything has been given to me by cricket,” said Harmanpreet to Star Sports.
Harmanpreet made her debut for Team India in 2009. Her leadership qualities shone brightly as she replaced Mithali Raj for a series vs Bangladesh in 2013 when the skipper was rested and later took the reins of the T20I side in 2016.
The skipper fondly recalled the first time she held an Indian jersey, she stated, "I can say off-field, when I held the Indian jersey for the first time, I took a photo after wearing it for the first time, and I was just thinking about who deserves this photo first."
"Should I send it to my parents, or the coach who gave me this platform, who gave me admission to his school, and said, 'I will start cricket in school for you,' should I send it to him? So I was so confused, who should I send first, because both were equally important to me," she added.
The Asia Cup will be followed by the Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh later this year, and the feisty Indian side looks up to the challenge as the team will be gunning for their third T20 World Cup. Harmanpreet further talked about how the side has performed in the past few years.
"In the last 7-8 years, our team's performance has been very good. Even before that, we used to play cricket, but we weren't able to win so many tournaments, and we weren't able to play such impressive cricket. So we always discuss that if there are two options, we will always choose the aggressive option.
"Before, it felt like we were playing a little scared cricket. When things didn't go according to our plan, we used to get scared very quickly, but now we play a little brave cricket, so we make brave decisions. With time, we have forced people to come to the stadium through our performance," she concluded.