“A dream come true,” is how Mumbai Indians’ captain Harmanpreet Kaur described her experience of playing and winning the first season of the Women’s Premiere League (WPL) last year.
On 26th March 2023, the Indian skipper became the first captain in WPL to lead her team to a title victory in the final against Delhi Capitals. Celebrations followed and so did the expectations. Now, when the season 2 of the well received WPL tournament is about to begin in few days, Harmanpreet shares her feelings about the inaugural season.
“WPL season was like a dream come true. I have been dreaming about WPL for so many years. And then to get the opportunity and win, it was like a dream. I can’t express myself. Our team combination was good, we were giving good performances so it felt really good,” the MI skipper said in an Exclusive conversation with News18.
Defending Champions Tag – Pressure?
With the trophy comes a lot of expectations and with expectations comes pressure. But is Harman and the Mumbai Indians camp feeling it?
“Not at all,” says says the Mumbai Indians skipper.
“Last year also we were very open minded. We didn’t put any pressure on ourselves that we have to win. It’s not like we have such a good side so we were expecting too much from ourselves, no. We just wanted to enjoy ourselves and keep doing the right things again and again,” she said.
“This year also, we are telling the team to just focus on the areas where we need to, just keep doing the right things and keep performing for the team. That is something we did last year and this year also we will just go out there and enjoy ourselves,” the skipper added.
Will Travelling be a Challenge?
“This was supposed to happen sooner or later,” said the MI Skipper when asked about the change in venues and the traveling involved in the second season.
“We have seen in the IPL games that they have Home and Away games and we are now going to experience the same thing this season. Last year we only had two venues but this time we are traveling to different cities so this is an opportunity for us to play in different venues and pitches,” said Harman.
Harman believes that Mumbai Indians have the perfect team combination for this format of the tournament.
“The major plus point for us is that our team combination is very balanced for this. We have a batting line up that plays both pace and spin well. And as far as our bowling attack is concerned, we have a good pace attack as well as a good spin attack. We just need to see the wickets and decide our playing XI on the basis of that,” she said.
“As cricketers, whenever we go to World Cups, we travel to different venues and play on different pitches. So it’s nothing new for us, we have done this in past. But since this happening for the first time in the WPL, we are taking it as a positive,” the skipper added.
The first match of the upcoming WPL season will be the repeat of last year’s final between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals on 23rd February at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore.
Comments
0 comment