The 37-year-old is the longest-serving cricket captain, amongst each women and men, to have captained in additional than 150 T20I video games.
Printed On 6 Oct 2026
India’s long-serving captain of the ladies’s cricket crew, Harmanpreet Kaur, has stepped down from the position throughout all codecs, bringing down the curtain on a profitable stint as she led the South Asian crew to their first ICC Girls’s World Cup title at residence in 2025.
Kaur introduced her resolution in a social media submit on Tuesday, two weeks after main India to a profitable defence of their gold medal on the Asian Video games.
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“Right this moment, I step down as captain of the Indian Girls’s Cricket Workforce throughout all codecs,” she wrote in an Instagram submit.
“This isn’t a simple resolution. It carries years of reminiscences, feelings, sacrifices, and moments that may stick with me for the remainder of my life.”
The 37-year-old was the Twenty20 captain for greater than a decade after assuming the position in 2016, adopted by ODI and Check captaincy in 2022.
Kaur, who made her T20I and ODI debuts for India in 2009, has had an illustrious profession as skipper.
Indian media stories mentioned Kaur’s resolution got here a day after she met Devajit Saikia, secretary of the Board of Management for Cricket in India (BCCI), to debate the way forward for the ladies’s crew.
Opening batter Smriti Mandhana, who has been Kaur’s deputy since 2022, is the favorite to take over the captain’s position.
Below Kaur’s captaincy, India received their maiden Women’s Cricket World Cup title in November final 12 months on residence soil.
Most lately, she led India to title defence on the Asian Video games, thrashing Sri Lanka, simply after lifting the Women’s Asia Cup trophy earlier in September.
The highest-order batter helped India attain the semifinals of the 2018 and 2023 Girls’s T20 World Cups, in addition to end runners-up within the 2020 version.
Kaur has captained India in 5 Assessments, 51 ODIs and 155 T20Is, and can also be the primary cricketer — male or feminine — to captain her aspect in worldwide cricket in additional than 150 T20I video games.
“I depart the captaincy immediately with a coronary heart filled with feelings, but additionally with peace … as a result of I genuinely consider my crew is in an excellent place,” she mentioned in her Instagram submit. “I really feel I’ve performed my responsibility.
“Captaincy could finish immediately, however my love for Indian cricket by no means will.
“Now, I’m able to play for the love of the sport once more. Captaincy ends. The journey continues.”
