New Delhi, Nov 15 : It happened more than a decade back but India’s World Cup-winning women’s cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur’s eyes welled up nonetheless as she recalled her first pay cheque of Rs 90,000, which made her feel like the “richest person” on the planet.
The toast of the nation was at the PTI headquarters here to talk about her extraordinary journey in an exclusive interview.
The highlight of her roller-coaster career is without doubt the World Cup trophy clinched on November 2 but leading up to that moment were several milestones that added to her belief, the debut pay cheque being a massive one.
“We used to have a tour fee of Rs one lakh in those days. No matter how many matches we played, we would get that amount, and after TDS, it came to around Rs 90,000,” she said when asked about it.
“I felt like the richest person on earth because it was my first earning,” she recalled, happy tears filling up her eyes that always dreamed of wearing the India blues.
The 36-year-old made her ODI and T20I debut in 2009 but became a part of the Test team only in 2014 during a tour of England where the side managed to beat the more fancied hosts by six wickets in the on-off game despite having eight debutants in the squad.
The big-hitter from Punjab’s Moga said when her maiden pay cheque landed at her home, she handed it over to her father Harmandar Singh Bhullar, a sports tragic who loved cricket and also played basketball and volleyball. He works as a clerk in the local court.
Bhullar was and remains the driving force behind Harmanpreet’s cricketing ambitions. Such was his passion for the game that he bought a shirt emblazoned with “good batting” for her even though it was a few sizes too big at that time.
“It was a cheque delivered to my home because that’s how payments used to be made at that time. I gave it to my father. Before that moment, my father was the one investing in me, and this was the first time I was giving something back to him.
“He deserved it more than me no matter how big or small the amount was,” she remembered. (PTI)
