Amanjot Kaur

Daughter of a carpenter/woodwork contractor, Amanjot Kaur played hockey, football and handball growing up before going on to focus on cricket. She joined the academy of cricket coach Nagesh Gupta when 15. Her father thought her craze for sport would fizzle out, but instead, in Amanjot, Gupta saw a lot of promise, and the first steps towards becoming an international cricketer began there.

She began primarily as a bowler before Gupta noticed her bat swing when she was giving catching practice to the kids at the academy. Amanjot developed into an allrounder after that and made her debut in domestic cricket for Punjab in 2017-18. She switched to Chandigarh for a couple of seasons in 2019-20 in search of more game time, but was back with Punjab from 2022-23.

A sequence of injuries to Pooja Vastrakar, India's preferred seam-bowling allrounder, allowed Amanjot to get a maiden international call-up for the tri-series in South Africa (also featuring West Indies) in 2023 just before the women's T20 World Cup. She bagged a Player-of-the-Match award on T20I debut and, later that year, picked up a four-for on ODI debut.

Her skillset is much sought-after in Indian cricket. Mumbai Indians realised it and picked her in the inaugural WPL auction for INR 50 lakh, beating a bid from Delhi Capitals. Despite playing all games for Mumbai Indians in the first two seasons, it was not until WPL 2025 that Amanjot managed to grab the spotlight with a number of match-defining performances.