Meet India’s 16 historic World Cup champions: Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma, and others. Her perseverance, her skill, and her glory

From gender bias to socioeconomic strangulation, from cultural clutches to prejudiced perceptions, the journeys of India’s 16 ICC Women’s World Cup winners to the highest levels of their sport are both empowering and inspirational. By breaking new ground, they have made it impossible to exclude half of India from the conversation about cricket. Meet the trailblazers who put an end to the Indian women’s cricket team’s protracted quest for a senior ICC championship.

Inspirational captain: Harmanpreet Kaur
Age: 36
Role: Middle-order batter

Punjab’s Moga

Harmanpreet Kaur, one of India’s greatest players, will live on in history for his 171* against Australia in the 2017 World Cup semifinal. The Moga girl has always saved her best for the special occasion, so it wasn’t an isolated incident. She scored her first ODI century against England in the 2013 tournament, and she became the first Indian woman to score a T20I century at the 2018 World Cup. When Harmanpreet was born, father Harmandar Bhullar purchased a T-shirt that read “good batsman” because he wanted one of his children to play sports. This purchase would turn out to be prophetic. To play cricket with the neighborhood boys, Harmanpreet would go with her father to the stadium across from their house. She was enrolled in a Tarapur academy by coach Kamaldeesh Singh Sodhi. Harmanpreet would dominate when playing against boys when she was accompanied by her brother, Gurjinder Singh, to local matches. Adam Gilchrist famously tweeted, “Very impressed with Harmanpreet,” following her six over extra cover in the WBBL 2016. elegant and deft. She treasures it.