Harmanpreet Kaur: Learned a lot from Women’s T20 Challenge

“We are looking for more matches and more teams in the next Women’s T20 [Challenge],” says the Supernovas captain after leading her team to the title.

Harmanpreet Kaur scored a vital 51 in Supernovas’ win in the final.

In the subsequent editions, the Women’s T20 Challenge needs to have more teams and matches, Supernovas captain Harmanpreet Kaur said after clinching the title here on Saturday night.

Harmanpreet, who scored a vital 51 in Supernovas’ last-ball win over Velocity, said: “Firstly it was great tournament for me, I learnt a lot from it and the same goes for other players also. We learned a lot from this tournament and that’s what we were expecting.”

AS IT HAPPENED

She added: “We wanted to play a T20 league in India and I am really happy the way it went. We are looking for more matches and more teams in the next Women’s T20 [Challenge].”

‘Excited’

Harmanpreet was surprised to witness a crowd of 15,000 cheering the teams. She revealed even the foreign players want the tourney to be bigger next year. “It shows how important this league is for the foreign players too. They were always asking when the women’s league was to be played in India where they can come and play. You can see how important these games were for everyone. How keen they were to play here. I think everybody was so excited for these games,” she said.

Harmanpreet was delighted to finish the job. “I learnt how to finish because depending all the time for sixes is not going to work and sometime you can play along the ground and win the games. I did half the job and Radha Yadav came and finished the game,” she said.

She added: “A lot of youngsters like Radha Yadav, Jemimah [Rodrigues], Deepti [Sharma] have great future and perhaps they would get an opportunity to play in other leagues and that would help us in building our national team.”

‘Positive approach’

Velocity batter Sushma Verma, who hit an unbeaten 32-ball 40 in the final, felt the foreign players’ positive approach should be imbibed by the Indian team. “I felt that the foreign players are very positive in their approach. I would like this positivity to trickle down to Indian players, too. I personally really liked the approach of the foreign players,” Verma said.

“You’ve seen how the environment in the dressing room changes in the face of quick wickets. But those girls were so chilled out and relaxed. They keep such a light and positive atmosphere in the dressing room. Personally I have learnt how to stay tension-free and chilled out in all situations,” she added.