This was a dream that had been building for 112 years. In 1913, when Australia-born schoolteacher Anne Kelleve made cricket compulsory for girls at the Baker Memorial School in Kottayam, Kerala, even Kelleve wouldn’t have imagined that over a century later, the Indian women’s cricket team would defeat the team from her country of birth to storm into a dream final. It’s not that India hasn’t entered the final of the women’s cricket World Cup before, but the 2025 edition will go down in history as a tournament in which selfdoubt gave way to conviction, talent met with match-winning performances and dreamers turned winners. When playing a World Cup at home, a title triumph was never going to be the absolute measure of Harmanpreet Kaur and her team’s success. It was about what they o

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