New Delhi: On a night when Indian cricket rewrote its history books, Harmanpreet Kaur stood still for a moment that the country will never forget. At the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai when the skipper took the last catch of Nadine de Klerk, sealing a 52-run victory over South Africa and delivering India its first-ever Women’s World Cup title. She became just the third captain after Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni to lift the World Cup trophy for India. It wasn’t just a win rather it was the moment generations of cricketers had dreamed of but never seen.
As the celebration raged and tears flowed freely, Harmanpreet’s expression told the story of a who had finally laid down the burden of 16 years of waiting. Hours later, when the adrenaline faded and silence returned, she shared a photograph that quietly became the defining image of India’s triumph. She was asleep beside the World Cup trophy, wearing a PUMA tee that read, “Cricket is Everyone’s Game.”
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The image was raw, intimate and deeply human with a champion finally resting after years of heartbreak. The caption of the post read, “Some dreams are shared by a billion people. That’s why cricket is everyone’s game.” It wasn’t just a reflection of victory but of what the win symbolised for women’s sport in India.
That one frame captured what statistics can’t. It represented the dreams of players from Moga, Rohtak, Siliguri, Agra and countless small towns that have carried Indian women’s cricket on their shoulders. For Harmanpreet, who once said she “played with boys because there was no girls’ team,” the image was a full-circle moment, proving that the impossible can become inevitable.
A new era for Indian cricket
Harmanpreet’s photo may be a personal moment but it stands as a national portrait of what Indian women’s cricket has become and where it’s headed. It followed a tournament that saw India beat South Africa in the final, Shafali Verma’s all-round brilliance, Deepti Sharma’s five-wicket haul and the calm of a team that finally believed it could finish the job after routing a comeback in the tournament after three loses in group games.
Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues also shared similar photo with the trophy that too went viral as a billion people were living the dream of being the World Champions as Indian women’s lift maiden trophy.
Even in post-match comments, Harmanpreet said, “We were waiting badly for this moment, and today we got to live it.” That simple line summed up the years of near-misses, the heartbreaks of 2005 and 2017 and the collective dream that this generation finally turned into reality.
As the Indian women’s cricket team ended the drought on Sunday night, the country stopped calling its women’s cricket and started calling it Indian cricket as they didn’t let another final haunt them as the memories of 2023 Men’s World Cup final are still fresh.