Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur recently said that cricket is like a “god” to her since it has given her everything. The Indian Team will be aiming to do well in the semi-final and defend their Asia Cup title as well.
Speaking exclusively to Star Sports, Harmanpreet Kaur said, “Cricket, I think, is everything to me. Without cricket, I do not 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.”
She also recalled that when she held the Indian jersey for the first time, she took a picture after wearing it as well. After that, she was confused about whether to share the picture with her parents first or with her coach first as both are important.
“I can say that 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,” said the captain again.
On her favourite moment on the field, Harmanpreet Kaur said that her knock of 171* in 115 balls against Australia in the semi-final of 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup still the best for her as well.
“On the field, in 2017, when I scored 171, that was something. I remember before that game, one of my friends told me, ‘We will win tomorrow only if you score 150 runs.’ I said, ‘150 runs? I have heard that you will score 100 runs, you will win tomorrow. 150, I mean, what is this demand, right? I will have to score 150 runs to win tomorrow.’ So that was stuck in my head for the whole night, and I kept thinking, ‘It is the Australian team, so I will have to play something different to beat them,’ because they had such a strong team. So I think that was very special for me,” recalled Harmanpreet.
Harmanpreet Kaur also said that over the last seven to eight years, the team’s performance has changed a lot. But before that, they were not able to win so many tournaments and play an aggressive brand of cricket as well.
“So we always discuss that if there are two options, we will always choose the aggressive option. Before, it felt like we were playing timidly. When things did not 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.
