One of the most famous lines from superhero comics is when Bruce Wayne, aka Batman’s butler Alfred, asks him, “Who do we fall, sir?”, the very next moment, he answers, “So that we can pick ourselves up.”
After the 58-run loss in the opening game against New Zealand that saw India’s net run-rate (NRR) drop down to -2.9, it felt like someone had poked a needle in the massive balloon of hope on which Harmanpreet Kaur’s women were riding towards the ultimate glory.
Batting issues related to her own strike rate and slow starts became headlines, and questions were rightly asked about the team's preparedness. Just a few days ago, Harmanpreet also proclaimed that this is the best Indian side to ever play in a T20 World Cup and that the side won’t leave any stone unturned.
However, India was found lacking in all three aspects of their first game. Not only had they allowed New Zealand to score more than 160 runs on a pitch that wasn’t friendly for batting, but they shot themselves in the foot by displaying fielding standards unbecoming of any international cricket team. The fact that the entire batting unit looked out of rhythm only compounded the doom in fans' hearts.
The balloon burst, and all it took was one T20 game. There couldn’t have been a bigger fall for the Women In Blue who were looking to make it a campaign to remember.
The next game against Pakistan didn’t see much improvement in the standards of cricket displayed by the Indian team. While the bowling was much better against the lower-ranked Green Queens, and the win did come, the batting lacked the intent and purpose required to salvage the NRR.
So, in this situation, where hope seems meagre and spirits down, what does Harmanpreet Kaur do? What does the leader of the Indian women do to improve the status quo?
She comes and bats like only she can, leaving hearts overwhelmed after watching her aesthetic annihilation of a bowling attack.
India had a great start in this game, with openers Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma batting close to their best and ensuring that runs kept coming at a steady pace in the powerplay. They had a huge 98-run partnership that had already put Sri Lankan bowlers under immense pressure, and the gaps in the field were proving hard to fill for Chamari Athapaththu’s women.
That’s when Mandhana and Verma departed in the 13th over, and India suddenly had two new batters at the crease on a slow, spin-friendly track. Harmanpreet’s record while starting her innings is quite slow, as she bats at run-a-ball in the first 10 deliveries of her innings. That’s where Jemimah Rodrigues's aggression with the bat from the first ball itself helped Harmanpreet to settle in.
Rodrigues started playing her sweeps from the word go, and her 16 off 10 ensured that the run-rate didn’t dip after the openers departed.
After Rodrigues was dismissed on the second ball of the 17th over, Harmanpreet finally went into her beast mode as a visibly out-of-rhythm Richa Ghosh joined her at the crease. The carnage that began then saw 44 runs being scored in the last 22 deliveries. Out of that, only six came from Ghosh’s bat.
It was all Harmanpreet, as she continued from where she left off in the 16th over, smashing Sugandika Kumari’s left arm spin for the longest six of the tournament (84 metres) and a four. The sound emanating from her bat after the six was her batting tempo reaching a rousing crescendo.
The Sri Lankan bowlers, in an attempt not to allow her room to free her arms, kept bowling yorkers and missed their execution, which converted them into hit-me deliveries. Kaur pounced on them like a glutton as 55% of the deliveries she faced were pitched full, and she took full toll from them by striking those deliveries at a strike rate of 213.
She wasn’t just finding her timing on a sluggish pitch while executing her shots; she was also generating immense power from her bottom hand to loft the Lankan bowlers over the infield for boundaries across the ground.
It was an innings that felt inevitable from the moment she hit that six, and Rodrigues’s dismissal thrust the responsibilities of a big finish on the Indian skipper’s shoulders in a match that the team was looking to win by a big margin.
Harmanpreet ended up with 52* off just 27 deliveries, which was not only worthy of the Player of the Match award she received but also the innings that became an allegory of India’s comeback in the tournament. The total of 172/3 also turned out to be India’s second-highest total in T20 World Cup history.
India’s captain rose after a fall, as she has always done in ICC tournaments for the nation. She also broke the record for the most Player of Match wins for an Indian woman, solidifying her legacy as India’s biggest big match player even further.
What is left in the group stages for India is the Australian challenge, and if this same Harmanpreet appears on October 13 in Sharjah, India might seal themselves a semi-final berth with a flourish reminiscent of their captain’s clean bat swing.
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