The special moment with the greats
The celebrations carried an added layer of emotion when India’s 2025 World Cup-winning squad shared the field with those who paved the way – Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami among many others.
Both stalwarts, present in the DY Patil Stadium on commentary duties, had been part of India’s near-misses in 2005 and 2017, leading and inspiring generations to dream of this very moment.
When Harmanpreet and the Indian team invited them onto the field to celebrate, it wasn’t just a gesture of respect but a symbolic passing of the torch – from those who began the journey to those who completed it.
“The last time back in 2022, when we returned after the World Cup, all of us were really sad. We knew that it was the last World Cup for Jhulan di and Mithali di. Smriti and I were sitting and talking, we were sad that we couldn’t deliver it for them,” she said.
“But we had decided that whenever we do it in the future, we will make sure that they would be in the stadium. We really want to capture that moment with them. Not only them, Diana (Edulji) ma’am was continuously messaging. Shubhangi (Kulkarni) ma’am, Sudha (Shah) ma’am, who was our coach when I made my debut.
“Everybody was there. To share this moment with them was something really special to us. And whenever we were dreaming and visualising, they were actually with us. We didn’t think of this moment without them.”
