‘You say everything is okay, but in your heart you know’ – Aakash Chopra feels Harmanpreet Kaur is under pressure in her ‘last’ World Cup

Aakash Chopra feels Harmanpreet Kaur is under pressure in her ‘last’ World Cup (Source: Matthew Lewis/ICC via Getty Images)

Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra feels that Harmanpreet Kaur is under pressure while leading India at the Women’s World Cup. Harmanpreet has scored only 40 runs in India’s first two matches in the tournament up until now.

Chopra highlighted that while Harmanpreet has featured in several World Cups, she has done that as a player, and not captain. He also underscored how Harmanpreet, now 36, might not be around for the next World Cup.

“There will be pressure. Firstly, you are the captain. This is your fifth World Cup, the first as a captain, and it might be in her mind that this could probably be the last as well. It’s very unlikely that she will be in the next ODI World Cup. So, the pressure is there,” stated Chopra during an interaction with Star Sports.

Chopra also mentioned how Harmanpreet’s lack of big scores after getting starts so far could go onto become a hassle for the team.

“If the others are also getting starts and not converting them into big scores, publicly, you say everything is okay, but in your heart, you know that you need to contribute. If a team’s leader doesn’t score runs, doesn’t perform from the front, the team becomes slightly weak. So, the captain has to score. She will definitely be feeling slight pressure,” he added.

India Women have won both their contests at the mega event so far. They started off with a 59-run win against co-hosts Sri Lanka (DLS method) in Guwahati and then went clinched an emphatic 88-run win against arch-rivals Pakistan in Colombo.

India’s next two games will be played at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam, where they are slated to host South Africa on October 9 and Australia on October 12.

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