Follow UsMumbai Indians are not the team where you would expect young, rather unknown players to lead them to victory with dominating performances.
Yeah, you might have a Sajana Sajeevan hitting a six on the last ball and winning it, but those are short-lived glories earned through clutch performances. When you have the likes of Hayley Matthews, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Harmanpreet Kaur and Amelia Kerr on your side, you expect them to be the ones to see their team to victory.
That’s how they won their first edition, where Issy Wong featured heavily in their dominant season.
So, it’s very natural that young players like Yastika Bhatia, Amanjot Kaur, Sanskriti Gupta or G Kamalini might only feel like shrubs growing under the shade of giant trees in an orchard.
It also shows in numbers, as Matthews, Sciver and Kerr are the bowlers to bowl the most overs for the franchise, with only one Indian bowler in the top five - Saika Ishaque. When you’ll see the batting numbers, only Yastika featured in the top five list of MI players to play the most deliveries and score the most runs apart from Harmanpreet.
Hence, it’s clear that their youngsters and lesser-known players aren’t the ones to shine when the glory arrives. It’s the proven performers, the giants, who take the light. While the rest remain in the shadows, completing the eleven but not exactly being at its front.
That’s why you are surprised when Amanjot Kaur, a proven pace bowling allrounder, bowls three overs for the first time in her 22-match MI career. You are even more impressed when you see that she has picked three wickets (including Ellyse Perry, Richa Ghosh and Georgia Wareham) as well, giving just 22 runs at an economy of 7.3.
You almost want to say her performance came out of the blue despite the lack of opportunities given to her by the MI setup while still being in the eleven. However, that wasn’t the point of her performance today. She got one chance, and she showed that she belonged right up there with the best who play the Women’s Premier League.
Amanjot was handed the ball in the 14th over by Harmanpreet, and within two balls, she had found her channel to bowl at Richa — on a good length and at the off stump, not allowing Richa any room to cut, nudge, slice, or hit her down the ground. The fourth ball had done the job — Richa, who was looking to rebuild at that stage with RCB 107/4, tried a cute shot on the off side, but the ball was quicker than her bat, and it cleaned her off stump.
She didn’t let Wareham have any fun with the bat, getting her to play a false shot on a delivery outside off straight to Sanskriti at backward point. Meanwhile, she got Perry caught on the penultimate ball long-on after conceding two consecutive boundaries against her and saving a few runs, which helped MI in the close encounter.
If it was a clutch performance with the ball, her batting proved even more useful for the side.
Three out of the four giant trees of MI had returned to the pavilion when she joined Harmanpreet at 82/4 in the 10th over. With the required run-rate not being too high, she knew what she has doing right from the start and was 1(8)* before finding her first boundary almost from the keeper’s glove through a fine cut shot.
That area certainly appealed to Amanjot, as she also sent Garth to a boundary in that region in the 14th over. MI inched closer to the target with Harmanpreet in command of the chase.
At 144/4 by the end of the 17th over, MI needed only 24 off the last three overs when Wareham picked Harmanpreet and Sajana on consecutive deliveries in the 18th over, and the other Kaur was left to figure out the rest of the chase with the 16-year-old G Kamalini.
Amanjot’s dad, who’s a carpenter, made a bat for her when she started showing interest in cricket as a young kid. On February 22, 2025 his daughter repaid that effort by playing the knock that would make her famous and taking her team home.
The 19th over was bowled by her friend Kanika Ahuja. Incidentally, I had met both Amanjot and Kanika near Brigade Road in Bengaluru. They were roaming around as friends do and eating fruit chaat while rehabbing at the National Cricket Academy nearby.
On the day, Amanjot smashed Kanika for two maximums in the penultimate over and made the chase a formality, which was completed by the steely Kamalini with a four.
You see, the other Kaur wouldn’t have been needed today had the older Kaur survived Wareham’s over. The other Kaur wouldn’t have gotten to bowl her second over of the game had she not cleaned up Richa’s stumps.
But the other Kaur, just like the other youngsters in the MI setup, was done living in the shadows. Her team needed her. So Amanjot Kaur rose today and reached for the stars. And what a rise it was!