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Journalism of Courage
Jo sab nahi hua tab, ab sab ho gaya.” India women’s head coach Amol Muzumdar’s father Anil says, before adding with a smile, “Jo bolte hain na, der sahi andher nahi!” (It took time for it to happen but eventually it did). As laughter erupts, his wife says quietly, “God is great!” It’s a phrase that Amol’s wife Ruhee too would say at their home, a five-minute walk from the parents. “When I met him at the ground after watching the final from the stands, I just said ‘God is great’ and hugged him.” Gratitude, then, is spilling out of the two homes in Mumbai suburb, a week after Amol and the Indian women’s team’s greatest night.
Amol joins us briefly at his home. He cites contractual obligations to being unable to talk but one suspects it’s also a ruse he uses to avoid talking about himself. He smiles when that’s put across to him. He still looks pretty young. He is 51, and that only shows in his greying curls. He seems guarded but his wife Ruhee bins that perception. “He is always like this. Even when his friends — those who played Ranji with him for Mumbai are still his gang — get boisterous, he will be sitting like this, a quiet wisecrack or two but on the main, enjoying their company. I must say he has changed a lot from his playing days. He speaks a lot now. Almost as if he is making up for those days. These days he speaks and my daughter and I listen!” It’s tough to believe. We try coaxing at least one quote on record from Amol and he finally gives in. He stands up, and pauses, as he tries to convey what this World Cup means to him.
“I have never ever felt this emotion before in my life. This happiness amongst people. What this win has meant to every citizen in the country, and I mean that sincerely. I have played, captained and won for Mumbai and it’s a different feeling. Not this kind of joy in common people. I can see it everywhere, with everyone I have met. It’s special, I have never felt this before. It’s new to me, and I must admit it has made me very happy.”
It has also made him emotional. On that glorious Sunday night, the world saw him shed a tear, as he came face to face with Smriti Mandhana, immediately after the triumph. He would turn his face away from her, and she has this blissful smile on her face as she gazes at him. The two go a long way. During the World Cup camp at the DY Patil ground, where the final unfolded, there was this one evening that observers of the team talk about. Amol and Smriti were chatting from early evening about her batting and how the team needs to take shape and the direction it needs to take. The sun went down, darkness set in, it was 9.30 at night when the ground staff told them it’s pretty late. The reverie broke and they left for the team hotel. No wonder, then, the eyes turned moist when all that effort came to fruition.
There was another moment that the world saw — Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s captain, bending to touch Amol’s feet. A perfect guru-dakshina moment in many ways. Harmanpreet would say how after the loss to England, “Amol sir” had a stern talking-down to the entire team then and there in the dressing room. It’s an Amol trait that his Mumbai teammates who have played under his captaincy vouch for. Direct-talk was his style. At times, and he chooses them carefully, consciously, he prefers to give the hard talk in the heat of the moment. There are some chats that can’t wait for the cold of the morning as it loses impact. He would have it out, right there and then, so that it sinks in straight.
A week later, now on a Saturday afternoon, he is relaxed at his home. His family might see it as a redemption but clearly he doesn’t think like that. He just smiles and shakes his head. He is a man intimate with waiting. Waiting for an India chance that never came, but he never lost his pride of playing for his Mumbai. On his Ranji debut, he had slammed a double century and played 117 first-class games, 115 of them for Mumbai, and piled up 11,167 first-class runs. He became the captain and, later, Mumbai’s coach.
He kept doing his thing and the game rewarded him for his passion and excellence with a World Cup trophy. All he wanted was some peace and quiet when he returned to his apartment a day after the World Cup. But, he was in for a surprise. The housing society, led by Gogate, had arranged a grand welcome. A drum band was called. Nearly 200 or more people from the society landed up.
Amol says he was thoroughly surprised when he tried to turn his car into the gate and heard the band blast away. The talk turns to the memes going viral. One in particular stands out where AI has superimposed his face on Shah Rukh Khan from the movie Chak De! India, the story of a coach who led a women’s hockey team to glory. He laughs. Amol has been called the Chak De! coach on social media. Even the ICC ran a video reflecting that.
Amol hasn’t seen the blockbuster though. “We never saw that,” says his wife, with a smile. “We don’t watch many movies.” His speech to the team just before they took the field for the final has also gone viral, with comparisons to Shah Rukh’s speech in the movie. The world saw Amol say: “Seven hours we cut out all the noise. We cut them out of our lives; we create our own bubble here. Seven hours create our own bubble, and we step into it, and we finish that, and we write our own story, no more stories from the outside. We write our own story. You will write your own story. Let’s stay in that bubble for the next seven hours. Let’s create history.”
It turns out that it was an impromptu speech. “I was so busy with this that I never thought about it. And when it was time, I thought, “Ab kya bolta?!” Amol recalls with a smile.
We turn to Ruhee to find more about the man — what does he do when he isn’t busy coaching? “Oh he is very creative. He paints, he cooks, he also sings a lot. He is such a good singer,” she gushes. “You know when Shreya Ghoshal came to the dressing room, Amol had sung a few lines before she did.” She then adds, “He also says give him a month, he can dance too if he puts his mind to it.” Now, that’s one sight that’s difficult to imagine. She laughs, adding, “No, he is serious!”Amol bursts out of the other room; he had left for his wife to hold court but must have overheard that remark and wags his finger at Ruhee, shaking his head with a smile. He disappears again. “Do you think I revealed a bit too much?” she asks.
Someone should, considering her husband doesn’t. His daughter Devina says her friends are so proud of her dad. “They now want to watch more women’s cricket. That is so sweet, na?” And probably the greatest achievement of her father’s team. A couple of hours earlier, his father had spoken about a young Amol and how he has always been “very disciplined, even as a kid”. Never naughty? “No, never.” His mother, Meena, also concurs. We put to them that during his playing days, Amol was the quintessential stern ‘khadoos’ Mumbai cricketer and would keep journalists on their toes. His father smiles.
“It’s all in the genes. Even this coaching. I wasn’t surprised. My father was a teacher. I also liked coaching.” Anil was a league cricketer in his time, a middle-order batsman (“Also a good point fielder”), working for a bank. At his college, he had played alongside that revered left-arm spinner Padmakar Shivalkar, who like his own son, could never play for India. “Such a good bowler he was. My son, too, did all he could. He gave it his best shot. So he nor us ever had any regrets about that. Past is past. Now, look, God has given him and the nation a world cup trophy. What more can we ask?”
As we leave Amol’s house, where a large canvas painting by his friend of Chhatrapati Shivaji bowing to the god, adorns the living room wall, we throw one final query, “At least tell us, what do you paint?” Slightly surprised that we know about his artistry, he says, “All kinds but landscapes are my favourite.” Perhaps, changing the landscape of women’s cricket is his best painting yet.
As a boy, Amol went to Mumbai’s famous Sharadashram Vidymandir school and learnt the game under coach Ramakant Achrekar, who also trained
Sachin Tendulkar
On his Ranji debut for Mumbai, under the captaincy of Ravi Shastri, and in the absence of Tendulkar, Sanjay Manjrekar and Vinod Kambli, who were away on national duty, Amol slammed a 260 in the pre-quarterfinal game. That double century remained the world record for the highest first-class score on debut for years
In the 2006-07 season, Amol became Mumbai’s captain, and a young Rohit Sharma made his Mumbai debut that year. In all, Amol played 177 first-class games, 115 of them for Mumbai and the rest for Assam and Andhra Pradesh
In 2018, Amol became batting coach for IPL team Rajasthan Royals and in 2021, became Mumbai Ranji coach.
He was also batting consultant for South Africa on their tour of India for a three-Test series in 2019
In October 2023, Amol was appointed head coach of the Indian women’s team
