Mumbai: While fans watched enthralled as Indian cricketer Amanjot Kaur scored a direct hit to the stumps to dismiss South Africa’s Tazmin Brits on Sunday evening, none were aware that her grandmother had suffered a heart attack a few days ago.
Amanjot’s family kept the news from her to ensure that she doesn’t lose focus during the ICC Women’s World Cup.
Her father Bhupinder Singh, a carpenter and contractor took his 75-year-old mother Bhagwanti to hospital last week after she suffered a heart attack.
When Amanjot started playing cricket with neighbourhood boys, it was Bhagwanti who would sit on a chair in the park to cheer for her. She would also ensure that nobody troubled her granddaughter. As the Harmanpreet Kaur led Indian team won the World Cup in Mumbai, Singh ensured his mother got match updates regularly.
“My mother Bhagwanti has been Amanjot’s pillar of strength since the day she started playing cricket outside on the street and the park at our Phase 5 residence in Mohali. While I would be at my carpentry shop at Balongi, she would make sure to sit outside the home or at the park to oversee Amanjot playing with the boys as well as other girls. After she suffered a heart attack last month, we did not tell Amanjot about it and the last few days have seen us spending time in hospitals for her treatment. The World Cup win has surely come as a balm in these tense times for us,” Singh told The Indian Express.
According to the newspaper, Amanjot had initially started as a skater as well as a hockey player. She would also play cricket in the Mohali neighbourhood. With Amanjot spending most of her time playing cricket, Singh would be on the lookout for an academy for his daughter after an elder neighbour suggested that he her for professional training in 2016.
At one of the academies in Chandigarh, the school needed Amanjot to enrol first before coach Nagesh Gupta took Amanjot under his wings. This was at the Government School in Sector 32.
“When I met Nagesh Sir, he told me to send Amanjot to the government school ground in Sector 32. I would take extra work at my shop or private work too so that I could give Amanjot whatever she needed for her training and would also pick her and drop her to the academy in Chandigarh from Mohali. Later, we got her a scooty and she would tell me, Papa chinta chi karni. Main vaddi ho gai han (Papa, don’t worry, I am a grown up now),” Singh recalled.
Gupta, now a BCCI Level 2 coach, would see Amanjot rise up in the ranks in the Chandigarh cricketing circle. Amanjot made the move to the newly BCCI affiliated UT Cricket Association (UTCA) Chandigarh in 2019. She went on to score 370 runs for UTCA in the BCCI Senior One Day Trophy in the 2019-20 season apart from scoring more than 457 runs in the BCCI U-23 One Day tournament the same season.
She also scored 184 runs and claimed ten wickets in BCCI U-23 T20 Trophy followed by a India A call-up.
“When she came to the academy for the first time, I was impressed by her follow through and wrist position. She had a good run-up too and would keep her arms close during the run-up. But her bowling was a bit erratic. So we worked with spot bowling and made minor changes in her wrist position and changed the position of her leg which was falling wider off the stumps. During that time one, I saw her batting once in the nets and the bat punch off the ball was very good. So I knew that she could become an all-rounder. She did not hesitate to train. And that helped early in her career,” The Indian Express quoted Gupta as saying.
In 2022, Amanjot shifted to Punjab again and the last three years saw her making her international debut with a woman of the match award in her debut T20I match against South Africa in Tri-Series in South Africa in 2023, apart from being picked in the WPL auction by Mumbai Indians in the 2023 auction. However, a year later a back stress injury and a hand ligament injury put her on the sidelines for more than eight months.
“We knew that she had to regain her strength post the recovery and she has to be calm mentally,” Gupta recalled.
In the World Cup, Amanjot had scored a half-century against Sri Lanka coming at the number seven spot with the team placed at 124 for 6 and also claimed the all important wicket of centurion Phoebe Litchfield in the semi-finals against Australia.
Gupta said how batting up and down the order early in her career has helped Amanjot and how she had worked on adding more variations in her bowling. “Early in her career, sometimes Amanjot would come 5-6 or sometimes would move up the order. We would work on her off side game as one requires that on turning wickets too.
“My mother is the biggest supporter for Amanjot and once she gets well, she will make sure that Amanjot is showered with all the love and the win is celebrated,” Singh said.
