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ICC president Jay Shah presents India captain Harmanpreet Kaur with the World Cup trophy (Express Photo by Narendra Vaskar)
India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said that even after the three back to back defeats against South Africa, Australia and England in the league stage which pushed them to the brink of exit, there was a collective calm in the unit and not even a single gave up.
“The last month has been very interesting. It’s very rare that things don’t go according to your plan, and yet you stay so positive. We were really looking for this cup — that was something special in our group. Not a single player said, ‘What will we do now?,” Harmanpreet said after India’s victory in the final against South Africa.
“Everybody just thought, “It’s okay.” After losing the England match, we were really heartbroken. We were about to win that match, but we collapsed. We had seen this in the past. That day, (Amol Muzumdar) Sir also said, ‘You can’t make the same mistakes again and again. You have to cross that line’. After that day, a lot changed for us. Every time, we cannot go on repeating the same things. We had to come with a strong mind. That night changed a lot for us. It had an impact on everyone,” she added.
After falling to England, India bounced back spectacularly, defeating New Zealand in a virtual quarterfinal and then followed it with with wins over Australia in the semifinal and South Africa in the final.
“We have been talking about this for many years – we’ve been playing good cricket, but we had to win one big tournament. (But) without that, we couldn’t talk about change,” Harmanpreet said.
“At the end of the day, fans and the audience want to see their favourite team win. It’s not that we weren’t playing good cricket, but we were waiting badly for this moment, and today we got a chance to live it. I don’t know how to express it, but I’m so happy and so proud of this team. I’m just trying to express what I’m feeling. I am numb. I am not able to understand. He (a journalist) asked two questions; I answered only one,” she added.
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