Women's T20 World Cup 2023

Watch: Emotional Harmanpreet Kaur weeps on the sidelines, consoled by Anjum Chopra after heartbreaking semi-final loss to Australia

by Wisden Staff February 24, 2023 - 7:33am 2 minute read

Watch: An inconsolable Harmanpreet Kaur burst into tears after meeting and hugging former India player Anjum Chopra following a devastating five-run loss to Australia in the Women’s T20 World Cup semi-final.

Skipper Harmanpreet was unable to control her emotions after she met Chopra following the narrow defeat at Cape Town on Thursday. The captain, who was unwell in the lead-up to the clash and had reportedly made multiple trips to the hospital. However, she took the field and played a fine hand of 52 off 34 deliveries as India inched closer to a final’s berth.

Chasing 173 for a win, India were jolted early and reduced to 28-3, but the duo of Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet kept them in the hunt, taking them to 97-3 in 10.1 overs. At 133-4, with 40 runs to get in 33 deliveries with six wickets left, it seemed like India would chase down the target before catastrophe struck.

Harmanpreet was out in bizarre fashion, and a familiar collapse came back to haunt India again. The team eventually went on to lose by five runs. It was not the first time that they went down by a small margin in the knockouts of world events, having lost by nine runs in the final of the 2017 World Cup and by nine runs again in the Commonwealth Games final last year. Harmanpreet, who had scored 65 in 43 in the CWG final in 2022, had remained a sombre figure after the defeat.

Overall, it was the Indian women’s team’s fifth defeat in the knockouts since 2017, having also lost in the semi-final and the final of the 2018 T20 World Cup and the 2020 T20 World Cup, respectively.

A teary-eyed Chopra went on to talk about the interaction with Harmanpreet after the game. “My intention was to give the captain some empathy because that’s all I can give from the outside. It was an emotional moment for both of us. The Indian team have reached the semi-finals many times and have lost.

“This is not the first time I’ve seen her playing like this. I’ve seen her battle injuries and illness and today she might not have even played. It was a player-to-player moment with her. We were trying to lessen our sorrows by sharing them.”