With 24 needed off 17 balls in the cauldron that was the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Mumbai Indians lost the wicket of Harmanpreet Kaur. A run-chase that seemed well within MI’s grasp was suddenly starting to slip away as the lower order was left to finish the job. The Royal Challengers Bengaluru fans were roaring once more. On her way back, the MI captain took a minute to chat briefly with her partner, Amanjot Kaur. “Harman di just told me, ‘If you stay out there, you’ll be able to do it easily’. And I told her, ‘I’ll do it for you, don’t worry’,” the younger Kaur revealed later.
And so, with 22 runs needed off 12 balls, Amanjot smashed two sixes in the 19th over that dragged MI back into the match and eventually, across the finish line as 16-year-old G Kamalini held her nerve in the last over. It was the day Amanjot had been waiting for a long time – to be a match-winner for Mumbai Indians with both bat and ball. She did just that against RCB with her 3/22 that included wickets of Richa Ghosh and Ellyse Perry and 34* off 27. It came after a testing 2024 due to injuries that have seen her slide out of India’s squad after making a bright start to her international career.
“Those six to eight months were very crucial for me. Blessed and grateful for that phase to have come in my life,” Amanjot said after the match. “Two people must have cried today, tears of happiness, I mean. Nagesh sir and Tanuja ma’am (personal coach and trainer). They were with me throughout those 6-8 months. They were just waiting for me to get back on the field. Nagesh sir hadn’t seen me bowl for a while. It must have been a big day for him too. They’ll have a good night’s sleep today.”
Actually, Nagesh Gupta couldn’t catch a wink. “It felt so great watching Amanjot Kaur win the match for Mumbai Indians with the bat and all. So happy that I couldn’t sleep last night,” coach Nagesh Gupta told The Indian Express. “I listened to the press conference and she said we would have slept well, par hum so nahi paaye ji, excitement itna raha.” (I couldn’t sleep, the excitement was too much.)
To get to this point hasn’t been easy for Amanjot. The story goes that her cricketing journey began when her father Bhupinder Singh, literally, decided to take things into his own hands. When she was excluded from a game of gully cricket by a group of boys with the excuse that she didn’t have her own bat, she told her father about it. Bhupinder, a carpenter by trade, went to his shop later in the evening, carved her a bat, and left it on her bed.
Amanjot Kaur and her father Bhupinder Singh at his shop in Balongi near Mohali. (BCCI/(Special arrangement)
And just when things were looking up, destiny had other plans. In January 2023, things were looking rosy for Amanjot. On the back of strong domestic displays, she made her T20I debut in South Africa and in her first outing for India, won the player of the match award. She made her ODI debut later that year too.
Tough phase
But in 2024, she missed large chunks of the season due to a back stress fracture and a hand ligament injury. Initially, it was tough to come to terms with. A feeling of ‘why did this happen to me’ because, as Nagesh said, Amanjot is a naturally gifted athlete who had always been proud of her fitness. “I have never taken fitness lightly. I am not a foodie, so I don’t like eating out. I really like to go to the gym. So, I never expected that I would get injuries like these, so I troubled my coach and trainer a lot for the first two weeks,” Amanjot said, recalling the initial stress.
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Nagesh concurred. “She felt like ‘everyone else is playing and I am not playing. And that too because of injury.’ The biggest challenge is how to remain motivated. During that time, I talked to her daily, exchanging messages. The first two weeks were difficult but after that, she realised she had the time focus on other areas. Rather than crying about injuries, we should take this as a challenge. The things that we can add, we can learn. On a daily basis, I used to tell her to try to learn a life skill or a cricket skill. That way you will grow as a human being and as a player when you come back from an injury.”
Amanjot said conversing with other Indian players playing in the NCA during rehab also helped her. “There were a lot of cricketers at the NCA, so speaking to them helped. Guys like Riyan Parag, Khaleel Ahmed, and Surya bhai was here as well. I would watch their discussions and that helped me a lot.”
Nagesh said, “She has been with me since 2016. To be honest, I haven’t seen a more eager and hardworking student than her. Always first to come and last to leave training. She learned a lot in the period she was injured. As she herself said, she has come closer to god, she prays a lot, and she has learned about humility. These qualities are also very important to become a good player. To become a good person.”
Indeed, at the end of her post-match chat, Amanjot looked up. “God’s plans are always greater than ours.”
