Harmanpreet Kaur is the captain who finally got India’s women over the line. On 2 November 2025, at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, she held the catch that finished off South Africa and gave India their first Women’s ODI World Cup. It made her only the third Indian captain to lift a World Cup, after Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni. Eight years earlier, an innings of 171 not out at Derby had shown what she could do with a bat. Between those two days she became the most-capped captain in women’s T20 internationals and the face of a side that learned how to win the big matches.
Name: Harmanpreet Kaur | Born: 8 March 1989, Moga, Punjab | Sport: Cricket | Position: Middle-order batter, part-time off-spinner
From Moga to the India side
Harmanpreet grew up in Moga in Punjab and was in the India squad before she turned 20. She made her one-day international debut against Pakistan on 7 March 2009, during that year’s World Cup in Australia. Her first T20 international came three months later, on 11 June 2009, against England at Taunton. A Test debut followed against England at Wormsley in August 2014.
Early on she was picked as a hard-hitting middle-order batter who could bowl a few overs of off-spin. The power was obvious from the start. Over the next few seasons she grew into one of the first names on the team sheet, a batter who could change the course of a match in a few overs.
The 171 not out at Derby
The innings that changed her career came in the 2017 World Cup semi-final against Australia at the County Ground in Derby on 20 July 2017. Rain cut the match to 42 overs a side. Australia were the defending champions and the strongest side in the women’s game. Harmanpreet walked in early and scored 171 not out off 115 balls, with 20 fours and seven sixes.
India won the semi-final and reached the final at Lord’s, where they lost narrowly to England. The defeat hurt, but the Derby innings stayed in the memory. It is widely rated among the finest one-day innings by an Indian woman, and it made her a household name at home.
Records in the shortest format
Her T20 batting produced a string of firsts. In the opening match of the 2018 World T20 in the West Indies she hit 103 off 51 balls against New Zealand, the first T20 international hundred by an Indian woman. In 2019, against South Africa, she became the first Indian cricketer, man or woman, to play 100 T20 internationals.
She had taken over the T20 captaincy in 2016. Under her, India reached the final of the 2020 T20 World Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 8 March 2020, her 31st birthday, but lost to Australia by 85 runs. When Mithali Raj retired in 2022, Harmanpreet became captain in all three formats.
Medals, a ban and an Asian Games gold
Women’s cricket made its Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham in 2022, and Harmanpreet’s side came home with silver. At the Asian Games in Hangzhou the following year she missed the quarter-final and semi-final because of a two-match suspension from the International Cricket Council. She came back for the final, which India won by 19 runs against Sri Lanka on 25 September 2023. It was her 100th T20 international as captain.
In franchise cricket she led Mumbai Indians to the first Women’s Premier League title in 2023 and won it again with them in 2025. She was the first captain to win the competition twice.
The 2025 World Cup
India hosted the 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup, and Harmanpreet’s best moment with the bat came in the semi-final against Australia. India were set 339 to win, the kind of target that had beaten them in the past, and she made 89 as they chased it down. In the final against South Africa in Navi Mumbai she scored 20, but the bowlers did the work and India won by 52 runs. She took the last catch herself, to dismiss Nadine de Klerk.
The win ended a long run of near misses for India’s women at global events, including the 2017 ODI final and the 2020 T20 final. Harmanpreet had been in both of those teams.
Handing over the armband
The year 2026 was mixed. India went out in the group stage of the T20 World Cup in June, and the board reviewed the side’s performance. Her last assignment as captain was the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, where India won gold again. On 6 October 2026 she announced that she was giving up the captaincy in all formats with immediate effect, aged 37. “Captaincy ends. The journey continues,” she wrote. Smriti Mandhana was named as her successor the same day, and Harmanpreet stayed on as a player.
By then she had led India in five Tests, 51 ODIs and 155 T20 internationals. She was the first player, male or female, to captain a side in more than 150 T20 internationals.
Career record and honours
- ODI debut: 7 March 2009 v Pakistan; T20I debut: 11 June 2009 v England; Test debut: August 2014 v England
- Career figures (as of late October 2026): 167 ODIs, 4,667 runs; 213 T20Is, 4,438 runs
- 171 not out off 115 balls v Australia, 2017 World Cup semi-final, Derby
- First Indian woman to score a T20I hundred: 103 v New Zealand, 2018
- First Indian cricketer to play 100 T20Is (2019)
- Women’s ODI World Cup winner as captain, 2025
- T20 World Cup runner-up, 2020
- Commonwealth Games silver, Birmingham 2022
- Asian Games gold, Hangzhou 2023 and Aichi-Nagoya 2026
- Women’s Premier League champion with Mumbai Indians, 2023 and 2025
- Captain in 5 Tests, 51 ODIs and 155 T20Is
- Arjuna Award, 2017
- Padma Shri, 2026
