The veteran women’s cricketer of India, Harmanpreet Kaur, has made an announcement about her retirement from the captaincy of India women’s cricket team in all formats, thus marking the end of a prolonged and successful period which included the prestigious ODI World Cup in 2025.
In recent times, Kaur led the Indian women to the Asia Cup 2026 title and the gold medal in the Asian Games 2026, with the team undergoing a significant change before upcoming matches.
The journey of Kaur’s leadership began back in 2012 when she started captaining the team intermittently and eventually became the captain in all formats. She has the record of having played the greatest number of matches as a captain for India in T20Is and led the team in the last four T20 World Cups with two semi-final appearances.
She also led India to their first-ever ODI World Cup win last year on home soil, and was also the vice-captain in the previous editions in 2017 and 2022.
“Today, I step down as captain of the Indian Women’s Cricket Team across all formats. This is not an easy decision. It carries years of memories, emotions, sacrifices, and moments that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I have given everything I had to this team and to Indian women’s cricket — my blood, my sweat, my time, and many times, a part of my own game and personal ambitions. There were moments when I had to put my individual performance, my own growth, and what I wanted for myself aside, because I believed the team had to come first,” Harmanpreet Kaur posted an emotional farewell message on social media.
The announcement came after Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and coach Amol Maumdar met BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia in Guwahati recently to review the Indian women’s team performance.
Harmanpreet Kaur had an extensive history of captaincy in white-ball cricket. She won 30 out of 51 ODIs that she captained, which is the second-highest number for India, and her win percentage was 58.82.
In T20 cricket, she captained India in 155 matches, which is the highest in history by a considerable margin. Her win percentage in T20S while captaining was 59.35.
