Mental motivation and dealing with pressure: For Amanjot Kaur, playing the World Cup is ‘just another match’
Coming in to bat on your World Cup debut when your team is in trouble can be daunting, especially if you are playing a competitive match after more than two months. But not for Amanjot Kaur.
“I get more nervous than she does. I was telling her that ‘You are going to play in the World Cup’. She would just tell me ‘Don’t worry, sir, it’s just another match. I’ll be fine.’ That’s her attitude,” recalled the all-rounder’s coach, Nagesh Gupta, on Tuesday during the innings break of India’s Women’s ODI World Cup 2025 opener against Sri Lanka.
Amanjot showed that she was doing just fine when she notched her maiden ODI half-century and partnered up with Deepti Sharma to take India’s wobbly ship to safer shores after Sri Lanka’s stormy bowling had threatened to sink it.
But weeks before she smacked 57 runs off 56 balls, the player from Punjab had been thrust into a circle she knew all too well. A niggle – likely related to the back stress fracture she’d suffered last year, which kept her sidelined for more than six months – needed to be overcome, and Amanjot had to keep herself optimistic; a place on the team for a home World Cup was a possibility.
“It’s become sort of a habit to go over this process with her. She, too, has become used to getting injured. That’s the issue with fast-bowling all-rounders; they are injury-prone as they have to do everything,” Gupta told Sportstar.
“She was going through the usual process of rehab, and I tried to keep her mentally motivated. She felt that she could fit in time for the World Cup, which she did,” he added.
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Cut to the ACA Stadium in Guwahati on September 30, Amanjot made an impact her coach expects her to have as a batter coming in at No. 8. “Her position in the batting order is such that she’ll either come when India has collapsed or there are a lot of runs on the board. In the former situation, she’ll have to play smartly, and in the latter, she’ll have to accelerate. I hope that in either situation, she’ll play her best.”
Gupta also expressed that his ward has learnt how to handle pressure thanks to her exploits in England in the recent tour, where she scored her maiden T20I fifty, and in the Women’s Premier League.
“India was in trouble at 124/6. Coming in to bat in that situation, she showed how to stay cool and play in a calm and composed manner. There are two ways you can bat in this situation; either go in a shell or keep rotating the strike, which both her and Deepti Sharma did very well,” Gupta said.
After helping the Women in Blue post a competitive total of 269 in a rain-truncated match, Amanjot was also given six overs with the ball before she was seen sitting in the dressing room towards the business end of the match.
“Since India is playing with just five bowlers, her role with the ball becomes important, so I hope she does just as well in that department,” Gupta had said before Sri Lanka’s chase, and Amanjot did return with the wicket of Vishmi Gunaratne in an otherwise expensive spell (37 runs).
Published on Oct 01, 2025
