Harmanpreet Kaur, Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma. Wonder what they all have in common? They are the only four captains to have won a World Cup for India. All four of these cricketers hold a special place in Indian cricket history. Kapil won India its first-ever cricket World Cup back in 1983, while Dhoni is the country’s only two-time World Cup-winning captain. As for Rohit, he brought India its first ICC trophy after 11 years when India won the T20 World Cup in Barbados in 2024. However, what Harmanpreet did was unique as she achieved a first in Indian cricket, becoming the country’s inaugural women’s World Cup-winning captain. Mithali Raj came close twice, in 2005 and 2017. Harmanpreet herself nearly crossed the line in 2020, but they all fell short. Until November 2, 2025, when Team India finally did, a win that immortalised Harmanpreet and her girls.
Seven days later, and the win still hasn’t sunk in for Harmanpreet, let alone the fact that she now joins an elite company featuring Kapil, Dhoni and Rohit. “To be honest, I am not even able to think about this right now,” said Harmanpreet on the ICC Review Show when asked what it feels like to become the first woman to win the World Cup for India and join legends Kapil, Dhoni, and Rohit. “Maybe I will realise after a few months what we have achieved, what we have given to the country. I can’t process it right now. I spoke about the same with Amol (Muzumdar) sir. It feels like we have won some bilateral series and we’re going home.
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“The impact of it is something that we will realise in a few months. Right now, it just feels like a dream. Even on the day we won, when we were dancing, everyone who would touch the trophy, asked “Is it real?” We have been watching this trophy from afar for so many years and never got the opportunity to touch it, to click pictures with it. I mean, what happened that night was magic,” she added.
Harman and that catch
Besides winning the World Cup, Harmanpreet Kaur did something else too that put her on the same level as Kapil and Dhoni. In the 1983 World Cup final, Kapil’s catch running behind to dismiss Viv Richards was a pivotal moment in the game, while Dhoni’s six off Nuwan Kulasekara to win the 2011 World Cup, too, became an everlasting image in the mind of every Indian cricket fan. Similarly, just as the clock struck 12 AM, Harmanpreet completed a catch that dismissed Nadine de Kerk – the last South African wicket to fall.
“The moment I took that catch, I simply wanted to run. I didn’t know what to do. Arundhati Reddy then came towards me and said “Harry di”. I said “Aru… we won. I can’t express that feeling in words. I just wanted to keep running around the ground in that moment. We wanted to thank the fans. It was really an emotional moment,” mentioned Harmanpreet.






