Felt we could win from the first ball itself: Harmanpreet Kaur

Among the many moments that caught the eye just past midnight at a frenzied DY Patil Stadium was the sight of Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana clinging to each other in the middle.

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India lifted their maiden Women's ODI World Cup trophy with Harmanpreet as captain and Smriti as her deputy

(Getty)

The captain and her deputy, the two pillars who had carried Indian women's cricket through heartbreak after heartbreak, finally stood at the summit they'd been chasing for years.

"I've played many World Cups with her," Harmanpreet said later. "Every time we lost, we went home heartbroken and stayed quiet for a few days. When we returned, we always said, 'we have to start again from ball one'. It was heartbreaking because we played so many World Cups, reaching finals, semifinals, and sometimes not even that far. We were always thinking, when will we break this?"

That break came on a night when India's belief didn't waver one bit, not even when they lost yet another toss and were asked to bat first in a game that was delayed by two hours due to rain. "We felt we could win from the first ball itself," Harmanpreet said. “Because the way our team was playing in the last three games, a lot of things changed for us, especially our self-belief. We knew what we could do as a team. It didn't matter that we lost the toss. We knew there would be tough conditions for batting, but credit goes to Smriti and Shafali; they handled the first 10 overs very well."