New Delhi, Feb 14 (IANS) With fast-bowling all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar, a key player for Mumbai Indians, being ruled out of the 2025 season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) due to an injury that has kept her out of action since October 2024, it presents an opportunity for Amanjot Kaur to step up for the franchise.
So far, Amanjot, who has been with MI since WPL’s inception, has played six ODIs and 12 T20Is for India. Though she is coming off a long injury layoff, the MI think-tank can expect Amanjot to fill the void left by Pooja’s absence.
In this year’s Senior Women’s One Day Challenger Trophy in Chennai, Amanjot made a comeback by amassing 97 runs and taking six wickets for Team E. “WPL 2025 will be very important for Amanjot, especially because she is coming back from injury. After the injury, she has played well in the Challengers. Her bowling and batting was good.
“Hopefully, she will get a better chance for Mumbai in batting and bowling. She will definitely do well. Amanjot was in the Indian team before the injury. Now that she has come out after the injury, this is a very good opportunity to make a comeback into the national set-up,” said Nagesh Gupta, Amanjot’s coach, to IANS from his academy in Zirakpur, Punjab.
Though MI have a more like-for-like replacement for Pooja in young seam-bowling all-rounder Akshita Maheshwari, who took 23 wickets in the Under-23 Women’s One Day Trophy last season, there is a possibility of the franchise fitting in both her and Amanjot in the playing eleven.
As Gupta pointed out, Amanjot hadn’t got much batting and bowling chances in the first two seasons, owing to the high-quality Indian and overseas players MI have in their playing eleven. This is very much evident from her amassing 81 runs in 11 batting innings for MI, while bowling just 30 balls for no wickets across both seasons.
Amanjot’s lone standout performance in MI colours was when she made 42 in her team’s defeat to Delhi Capitals in WPL 2024’s opening game in New Delhi, and left everyone dazed by reverse-scooping Shikha Pandey past short third. Gupta reveals it was a shot she invented herself in practice.
“I never taught her how to hit a reverse scoop. She has developed this shot by herself. Later, I asked her about this shot. She said that she knew that Shikha didi will bowl here, and if she did that.
“Players are playing on different levels these days. They are inventing their shots as well, which is very good. The advantage of having someone like Amanjot is that she bats well, and is a very good fielder also. So she is like a complete package, and hopefully she will perform well,” he signed off.
–IANS
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