Harmanpreet Kaur

Harmanpreet Kaur is a professional Indian cricketer, born on 8 March 1989 in Moga, Punjab, India. Harmanpreet plays for Indian women's cricket team as an allrounder, she is a right handed and bowls right-arm offbreak. Her cricketing style is similar to that of legendary batsman Virender Sehwag, which is a simple theory of “see ball hit ball”. She is also the first woman to score a century in Women's Twenty20 International match.

Background

Kaur was born to Harmandar Singh Bhullar, who was a basketball and volleyball player himself. She got pursued cricket after joining Gian Jyoti School Academy and was trained under coach Kamaldeesh Singh Sodhi.

Debut

Harmanpreet made her One Day International debut at the age of 20, against Pakistan in March 2009 in the Women's Cricket World Cup. She bowled four overs only conceding 10 runs.

In June 2009, she made her T20 debut against England in the 2009 ICC Women's World Twenty20, scoring eight runs off seven balls.

Kaur played her first test match on 13 August 2014 against England but was not successful in proving her potential in the innings.

Rise to Glory

Harmanpreet was known for her exceptional skill to hit the ball a long way and she proved this against England women's in a T20 International game played in Mumbai in 2010, where she scored an extremely quick 33.

Kaur proved that she was a real talent and her play was so compelling that she was made the Indian captain in 2012 for Women’s T20 Asia Cup, as captain Mithali Raj was out with an injury.

Her first game as captain ended well when she put in great effort to defend a sum total of just 81 runs against Pakistan to win the Asia Cup.

Kaur captained India in ODI for the first time when the team faced Bangladesh at home. She had a fantastic series scoring her second century and had an average of 97.50 with a fifty and two wickets.

In November 2014, the Indian all-rounder showed her skills with ball against South Africa women cricket team, taking 9 wickets in a test match which resulted in India winning the match by an innings.

Kaur was a big reason India managed to win the T20 series against the likes of Australia. She scored a rapid fire 46 runs from 31 balls which helped them chase the highest score ever summed up in T20 Internationals. Her tremendous form did not come to halt and in the 2016 ICC Women's World Twenty20 she scored 89 runs, Harmanpreet also took seven wickets in four matches.

Harmanpreet was included in the CC Women's T20I Team of the Year in December 2017.

Kaur was once again given captaincy in October 2018 for the 2018 ICC Women's World Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies. She was in the limelight because of her amazing performances in the last few years. She scored a cracking 103 off 51 balls against New Zealand and was the first women to score a century in the Women’s T20I.

Club Career

Harmanpreet was the first Indian cricketer to get signed by an overseas club in the T20 format of the game. She started playing for Sydney Thunder, the Women's Big Bash League champions in the 2016-17 season.

Records

Kaur scored a 171 off 115 balls against Australia in the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup semi-final, which makes her the second highest scorer in women's one-day internationals.

She also has record of highest individual score for India in the history of Women's cricket World Cup.

Harmanpreet is also the second Indian batter to rank in the top 10 ICC Women's ODI Player Rankings.