India women's

No team in women's cricket has rewritten its own story as dramatically as India. Their progress from early struggles to world champions is a tale of individual brilliance and collective ambition, punctuated by heartbreaks that only fed the fire. Led by the inspired batting of Mithali Raj and the tearaway pace of Jhulan Goswami, they reached World Cup finals in 2005 and 2017, falling just short each time, and lost the 2020 T20 World Cup final to Australia in front of 86,000 in Melbourne.

Since then, Smriti Mandhana's elegant strokeplay and Harmanpreet Kaur's explosive hitting have made them a box-office draw, with silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and repeated Asia Cup titles along the way. The launch of the Women's Premier League in 2023 deepened the talent pool, sharpening players like Deepti Sharma, Renuka Singh Thakur and the fearless young opener Shafali Verma.

The breakthrough finally arrived in November 2025, when Harmanpreet's side won the ODI World Cup on home soil, beating South Africa in the final in Navi Mumbai, with Deepti Sharma named Player of the Tournament and Shafali Verma starring on the biggest night. Decades of near-misses ended in one stroke, and Indian women's cricket now carries the expectation, and the resources, of a cricketing superpower.