India’s senior players believe the upcoming Women’s ODI World Cup, which begins on 30 September, offers the best chance yet to end the country’s wait for a first global 50-over title. Eight sides are involved; India open against Sri Lanka.
The record so far shows near-misses. India were runners-up in 2005 and again in 2017, but slipped out before the semi-finals in 2022. This edition is at home and, on paper, the form lines look good: nine wins from 11 ODIs this year, including a 3-0 sweep of Ireland, a tri-series success in Sri Lanka, and a 2-1 victory in England, currently the second-ranked team.
“Playing in front of a home crowd, that is always special, and hopefully, this time we will give our 100% and try to break that barrier which all Indian fans and we are waiting for,” Harmanpreet Kaur said during an ICC function in Mumbai that marked 50 days to the tournament.
Confidence, she argued, comes from the volume of cricket India have packed into the calendar. “To be honest, very high – because the amount of cricket we have played in the last couple of years, that has really given us a lot of confidence. And touchwood, the way we are playing [for] the last couple of years, we just want to continue with that. I think it is all about mindset and [the] fearless cricket we have been playing,” the captain explained.
That series in England was a case in point. India won the five-match T20I campaign 3-2 and then edged the hosts in the one-dayers. “We were not surprised with the results [in England] because we knew the kind of preparation we have done,” Harmanpreet said. “We knew that we can do this easily. I think we have been working very hard for it, but I think at the same time, we kept things very simple, and we knew that we can easily win any series or any tournament. We were only talking about how we can win, how we can improve ourselves. So, for us, it was not like we have done something great. [The result] was because of our routines and we want to keep doing the same things, again and again.”
Vice-captain Smriti Mandhana pointed to the less visible work that has laid the platform. “The amount of training we are doing and the efforts we are putting in our training camps, that is finally giving us a result and hopefully this World Cup will be very special for us,” she said. “In the last one-and-a-half month in UK, I just felt that a lot of things. Even off the field was very right about the team, in terms of how everyone came together and we, as a team, are really big on it in terms [of how] we are working hard here each day, day in, day out.”
Much of the optimism rests on a settled core. Mandhana and Harmanpreet are joined by all-rounders Deepti Sharma and Pooja Vastrakar, plus the wrist-spin of Rajeshwari Gayakwad. Younger players such as Shafali Verma add batting firepower, while the fast-bowling group has grown since the last World Cup. The domestic Women’s T20 league, now two seasons old, has given fringe players more high-pressure exposure, a point often raised by former India coach WV Raman, who believes “regular competitive cricket at home shortens the learning curve.”
There are still gaps. Death-overs bowling remains a work in progress and middle-order collapses have not disappeared entirely. Yet the schedule before the World Cup – three ODIs versus South Africa and two warm-ups – offers time to tidy those loose ends.
If Harmanpreet’s side do finally lift the trophy, they will have done so through a mixture of familiar names hitting their peak and younger teammates who have known only the professional era. It is a blend that, at least on paper, looks capable of “breaking the barrier” that has stood since 1978, when India first entered the women’s one-day arena.
For now, expectations are high but measured. The captain’s parting line summed it up neatly: win or lose, fearless cricket remains non-negotiable.
