When the Indian women’s cricket team won the World Cup for the first time after almost five decades of waiting, the whole country along with the players rejoiced with joy, but the person standing on the field had tears in his eyes, a smile on his face and a sense of satisfaction as if this victory had healed many old wounds.
This was Amol Majumdar, the coach of the Indian women’s team. Despite 20 seasons in domestic cricket and scoring more than 11,000 first-class runs, his dream of wearing the India jersey remained unfulfilled. As a player, he was heartbroken many times and had many regrets, but this victory completed his journey.
When captain Harmanpreet Kaur touched the feet of ‘Guru’ Majumdar after the victory and hugged her and cried, the eyes of every cricket lover watching the victory celebration with their eyes fixed on the TV were filled with tears. The story of Majumdar, who is going to celebrate his 51st birthday this month, reminds of hockey coach Kabir Khan from Shahrukh Khan’s film ‘Chak De India’, who proves every speculation wrong and leads the team to the World Cup and this victory also heals many wounds of his past. After winning, he is seen trying to contain the storm of emotions within him amidst the celebration, but relief is clearly visible on his face.
Majumdar said after the victory in the final, “I used to tell them (Indian players) that we are not losing. Just missing out on crossing that hurdle. We were very competitive in those three matches (matches against South Africa, Australia and England in the league stage) and all these matches were very close. Majumdar, who became the coach of the team two years ago, always had his eyes on this World Cup but at that time it seemed impossible because Indian women’s cricket was going through a difficult phase.
There was no dearth of talent among the players but results were not achieved. In the last five years, Ramesh Powar, WV Raman and then Powar had been the coaches. During Raman’s tenure, India definitely reached the final of the T20 World Cup in Australia in 2020, but apart from that, there was only disappointment in global competitions. Not only this, there were frequent reports of factionalism, lack of trust and indiscipline within the team. Before Majumdar’s arrival, the Indian team did not have a full-time coach for about ten months.
Powar was removed in December 2022 with Rishikesh Kanitkar and Nooshin Al Qadir looking after the job in the interim. First of all he won the trust of his team. Maintained clear communication with all the players. When patted on the back for good performance, they were seen standing together in bad times. Amidst the criticism, he was seen standing as a shield for his players and from here the foundation of a relationship of trust was laid which culminated in ‘Gurudakshina’ in the form of the World Cup trophy.
The team looked united throughout the tournament. Players were seen celebrating each other’s success and supporting each other in difficult times. After all, this is the first condition to become a champion team. Majumdar had also proved his skills as a player. Majumdar, who was the vice-captain of the Indian Under-19 team on the England tour in the nineties, was called the ‘new Tendulkar’.
Like Tendulkar, Majumdar, who was a disciple of Ramakant Achrekar at Shardashram School in 1994. Played with Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly for India A in 1995. But his dream of playing for India could not be fulfilled while his contemporaries Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly became legends of Indian cricket. Majumdar was one of the stalwarts of the Mumbai team, later he also played for Assam and Andhra.
For Mumbai in 1993. Majumdar, who made his debut in the 94 Ranji season, scored 260 runs against Haryana, which was a world record for the highest innings on debut in first-class cricket. Later it was broken by Ajay Rohera in 2018. Majumdar, who has been the head coach of Mumbai team, has been the batting coach of Rajasthan Royals, India Under-19 and Under-23 teams, Netherlands cricket team and South Africa cricket team on India tour.
Coach Kabir Khan had given the famous ’70 minutes’ speech before the World Cup final match, while Majumdar only told his players that to create history they had to score just one more run. There was so much faith in the team that despite three consecutive defeats in the group stage, no player was blamed. Kept saying that the tournament is long and the team will live up to the expectations. Their 15 brave players proved every belief of their coach right.
