Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke has shared a deeply personal tribute to Harmanpreet Kaur after the veteran batter announced her decision to step down as India’s captain across all three formats on Tuesday morning through her personal Instagram handle.
Dipke, who is at the center of India’s youth rising, chose instead to focus on the emotion, intensity and legacy of a leader who redefined Indian women’s cricket. His message portrayed Harmanpreet not merely as a trophy-winning captain, but as a player whose visible passion became the emotional engine of her team.
“Thank you, Captain. For everything!” Dipke began, before recalling the moment Harmanpreet was run out and walked off visibly enraged during the Commonwealth Games gold medal match against Australia in 2023, where India clinched a silver medal. “Some called you too emotional and too hot-headed. I always thought you simply cared too much,” he wrote, adding that her anger reflected how deeply the jersey, the team and the country mattered to her. It was a fitting assessment of a captain whose leadership was never built on detached calmness, but on an unfiltered desire to win.
Harmanpreet Kaur’s captaincy journey began in the T20I format on 31 October 2012, when she led India against Pakistan in the inaugural ACC Women’s T20 Asia Cup final at Guangzhou. India won by 18 runs to claim the first edition of the tournament, an early indication of the big-match temperament that would define her tenure. She was appointed full-time T20I captain in November 2016, before taking charge of the ODI side in June 2022 following Mithali Raj’s retirement and subsequently leading India in Tests as well.
Her greatest captaincy prize arrived at the 13th ICC Women’s ODI World Cup in 2025, when India defeated South Africa by 52 runs in the final at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on 2 November to lift their maiden senior-level ICC title. Harmanpreet made 89 off 88 balls in the semi-final win over Australia, sharing a decisive stand for the 3rd wicket with Jemimah Rodrigues during India’s successful chase of 339. Dipke called seeing her lift the World Cup “one of my favourite memories from cricket,” writing that it felt like the game had finally rewarded someone who had given so much of herself to it.
The numbers reinforce why that moment carried such weight. As T20I captain, Harmanpreet led India to victory in a record 92 matches, scoring 1,827 runs at an average of 35.82 and a strike rate of 114.97 in winning causes, with six fifties and a century. Her overall T20I captaincy win percentage stands at 59.35, while she also became the first player, man or woman, to appear in 150 T20Is as captain during the 2026 ACC Women’s T20 Asia Cup.
In ODIs, she captained India in 51 matches, scoring 1,804 runs at an average of 44, including 10 half-centuries and four centuries. Her unbeaten 143 off 111 balls against England at Canterbury in September 2022 remains one of the defining innings of her leadership, helping India complete a historic 3-0 whitewash in England during Jhulan Goswami’s farewell series. Her ODI captaincy win percentage is 58.82, while she averaged an extraordinary 63.57 in 28 winning-cause innings, scoring 1,335 runs with six fifties and four hundreds.
Dipke’s tribute also recognised the team Harmanpreet leaves behind. “You built a team and taught them how to fight,” he wrote. “A team that learned to believe it belonged at the very top and shouldn’t settle for less.” That belief was visible in India’s back-to-back Asian Games gold medals, won in Hangzhou in 2023 and retained in Nisshin in 2026, as well as their fourth ACC Women’s T20 Asia Cup title in Dubai earlier in September.
Her Test captaincy record is equally striking: an 80 percent win rate, with India registering their first-ever women’s Test victory over Australia at Wankhede in December 2023 and defeating England in the historic first women’s Test at Lord’s in July 2026. Yet, as Dipke suggested, her greatest achievement may not be any single trophy, but the culture of self-belief she instilled in a squad now ready to compete without her at the helm.
Smriti Mandhana has been appointed India’s new all-format captain, with Shafali Verma named T20I vice-captain and Deepti Sharma taking the ODI vice-captaincy. Mandhana’s first assignment will be India’s maiden white-ball bilateral series against Zimbabwe from 16 to 28 October, followed by an all-format tour of South Africa in December and the inaugural Women’s T20 Champions Trophy at home in February 2027.
Dipke ended his message with the line that best captures Harmanpreet’s legacy: “Someone else will carry the torch now, but the fire will always have a little bit of you in it.” For Indian women’s cricket, Harmanpreet Kaur’s captaincy may have ended, but the fighting identity she created will endure.
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