Bhupinder Singh has been taking his 75-year-old mother Bhagwanti to hospital last week after she suffered a heart attack. However, Bhupinder, a carpenter and contractor, kept the news of his mother’s ill-health from his daughter and allrounder Amanjot Singh. He didn’t want her to lose focus while playing in the ICC Women’s World Cup at home. But though she sensed something was amiss, the family members managed to convince her otherwise until after the final.
“Amanjot had an intuition that Biji (grandmother) is not well. First she called her sister who told her that she was at the gurdwara. Then she called me and told me to get her Biji on video call. After much insistence, I told my mother that it’s the biggest match of her career today and she wished Amanjot best of luck on the call. I told Amanjot that Biji was not well as she had low BP but we told her nothing about the heart attack. It was only after the final that we told her about the heart attack. Today, she spoke with the doctors, who will be doing more tests tomorrow,” shared Singh while speaking with The Indian Express.
The grandmother Bhagwanti Kaur shared her bond with Amanjot. “Voh meri poti hi nahi par pote toh vi vaddh ke hai (Amanjot is not just my granddaughter but more than even my grandson),” she says.
When Amanjot started playing cricket with neighbourhood boys, her grandmother would sit on a chair in the park to cheer for her. She would also ensure that nobody troubled her granddaughter. As the Harmanpreet Kaur led Indian team won the World Cup in Mumbai, Singh ensured his mother got match updates regularly.
“My mother Bhagwanti has been Amanjot’s pillar of strength and biggest supporter since the day she started playing cricket outside on the street and the park at our Phase 5 residence in Mohali. While I would be at my carpentry shop at Balongi, she would make sure to sit outside the home or at the park to oversee Amanjot playing with the boys as well as other girls. We have been spending time in hospitals for her treatment. The World Cup win has surely come as a balm in these tense times for us,” Singh told this newspaper.
While Amanjot had initially started as a skater as well as a hockey player, she also played cricket in the Mohali neighbourhood. On the suggestion from a neighbour, Singh began his hunt for a cricket academy before eventually meeting the coach Nagesh Gupta, who took Amanjot under his wings.
“When I met Nagesh sir, he told me to send Amanjot to the government school ground in Sector 32. I would take extra work at my shop or private work too so that I could give Amanjot whatever she needed for her training and would also pick her and drop her to the academy in Chandigarh from Mohali. Later, we got her a scooty and she would tell me, Papa chinta chi karni. Main vaddi ho gai han (Papa, don’t worry, I am a grown up now),” recalls Singh.
“When she came to the academy for the first time, I was impressed by her follow through and wrist position. She had a good run-up too and would keep her arms close during the run-up. But her bowling was a bit erratic. So we worked with spot bowling and made minor changes in her wrist position and changed the position of her leg which was falling wider off the stumps. During that time one, I saw her batting once in the nets and the bat punch off the ball was very good. So I knew that she could become an all-rounder. She did not hesitate to train. And that helped early in her career,” Gupta, now a BCCI Level 2 coach, told The Indian Express.
Gupta, now a BCCI Level 2 coach, oversaw Amanjot’s rise up in the ranks in the Chandigarh cricketing circle. And on her international debut WT20I against South Africa in 2023, she starred with the woman-of-the-match award. She was later picked up at the WPL auction by Mumbai Indians that year. However, a year later a back stress injury and a hand ligament injury put her on the sidelines for more than eight months.
“We knew that she had to regain her strength post the recovery and she has to be calm mentally,” Gupta recalled.
Amanjot had scored a half-century against Sri Lanka coming at the number seven spot with the team placed at 124 for 6 in India’s opener in the World Cup and had also claimed the all important wicket of centurion Phoebe Litchfield in the semi-finals against Australia. Gupta also talks about how batting up and down the order early in her career has helped Amanjot and how she had worked on adding more variations in her bowling. “Early in her career, sometimes Amanjot would come 5-6 or sometimes would move up the order. We worked on her off side game as one requires that on turning wickets too.
Meanwhile, in the here and now, Amanjot’s father Singh, and his wife Ranjeet Kaur and children Kamaljot Kaur and Gurkirpal Singh have been taking care of the grandmother. He adds how his mother would have celebrated the win for Amanjot and Indian team had she been healthy.
“She would have made the karah prasad to offer at gurudwara, thanking the god for making the girls win.”
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