Ahead of the Women’s Asia Cup game against Nepal, Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said that cricket is like a “god” to her since it has given her everything. The Women in Blue will be aiming to make it a hat-trick of wins as they carry on their women’s Asia Cup title defence in a match against Nepal on Tuesday. While India is at the top of Group A with two wins in two games and are almost certain for the semifinals, they would like to win this last group stage game to keep the momentum going. So far, India has notched wins against arch-rivals Pakistan and UAE.

Speaking exclusively to Star Sports, Harmanpreet said, “Cricket, I think, is everything to me. Without cricket, I do not think I would be anything. The name that cricket has given me, no other field could have given it to me. So I think, for me, cricket is like a god. Whatever I dreamt of in my childhood, whatever I dreamt of while playing, everything has been given to me by cricket.”

Harmanpreet recalled that when she held the Indian jersey for the first time, she took a picture after wearing it. After that, she was confused about whether to share the picture with her parents first or with her coach.

“I can say that off-field, when I held the Indian jersey for the first time, I took a photo after wearing it for the first time, and I was just thinking about who deserves this photo first. Should I send it to my parents, or the coach who gave me this platform, who gave me admission to his school, and said, ‘I will start cricket in school for you,’ should I send it to him? So I was so confused, who should I send first, because both were equally important to me,” said the skipper.

On her favourite moment on the field, Kaur said that her knock of 171* in 115 balls against Australia in the semifinal of 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup stands out to her.

“On the field, in 2017, when I scored 171, that was something. I remember before that game, one of my friends told me, ‘We will win tomorrow only if you score 150 runs.’ I said, ‘150 runs? I have heard that you will score 100 runs, you will win tomorrow. 150, I mean, what is this demand, right? I will have to score 150 runs to win tomorrow.’ So that was stuck in my head for the whole night, and I kept thinking, ‘It is the Australian team, so I will have to play something different to beat them,’ because they had such a strong team. So I think that was very special for me,” recalled Harmanpreet.

Harmanpreet said that over last seven to eight years, the team’s performance has been very good. But before that, they were not able to win so many tournaments and play an aggressive brand of cricket, she added.

“So we always discuss that if there are two options, we will always choose the aggressive option. Before, it felt like we were playing timidly. When things did not go according to our plan, we used to get scared very quickly, but now we play a little brave cricket, so we make brave decisions. With time, we have forced people to come to the stadium through our performance,” she concluded.

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