Harmanpreet believed, Amanjot delivered

"Tu hai te ho jana hai aaram naal [if you stick around, we'll win easily]," were Harmanpreet Kaur's parting words to Amanjot Kaur when Georgia Wareham broke the crucial 62-run stand in the 18th over.

S Sajana, who last time made an entry at the M Chinnaswamy so spectacular it earned her an India cap, was LBW the very next ball. Only two singles came off the rest of the over, leaving Mumbai Indians with 22 to get off the last 12 against hosts Royal Challengers Bengaluru and its vociferous crowd. The Mumbai Indians skipper, just about settling into her seat in the dugout, was at this point probably trying to shun some unsettling flashbacks.

Twice at the business end of WPL 2024 in Delhi against RCB, MI's batting floundered after Harmanpreet's dismissal. Second of those games was the Eliminator, losing which brought curtains on the title defence of the inaugural champions. Surely this wasn't happening again.

Little did Harmanpreet know those few words of affirmation would flick a switch. "Haan Harry di, aapke liye ho jayega [Yes, I'll do it for you], replied Amanjot as the captain made her exit after setting up the chase for MI with yet another brisk half-century.

Amanjot was only batting on 20 off 22 deliveries then, playing the ideal second fiddle to her skipper. But she knew all she had to do was see out the remaining four balls of Wareham - RCB's best bowler on the night. From there on, it was one over left of experienced yet expensive-on-the-night left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht and another one from the under-utilised offie, Kanika Ahuja.

A tactical misjudgement, perhaps, from RCB played into MI and Amanjot's hands. Smriti Mandhana threw the ball to Ahuja, and Amanjot's eyes lit up. Not only was it a "positive match-up" of an offspinner, it was also the offspinner she knew inside-out having played nearly all their domestic cricket together for Punjab. With the Harmanpreet-Amanjot pair in the middle, it wasn't without reason that Mandhana had held back Ahuja until the 15th over in the first place. But it also meant most of RCB's frontline options were bowled out by the time, in their attempt to prise out key wickets in the middle-overs phase after the PowerPlay went awry.

Ahuja floated the first one outside off, and Amanjot was quick to react as she shimmied down the track to get close to the pitch of the delivery and lofted it cleanly over a leaping Wareham at long-on. Six off the first ball transferred the pressure back on to the bowler. Amanjot found herself back on strike for the last ball of the over only to face an exactly similar delivery and she sent it sailing over long-on once more.

MI's requirement was now down to a run-a-ball in the final over, and Amanjot's job was all but done. Game, set, match.

"I didn't want to drag it to the 20th over because, sometimes, under pressure [of the final over] you're unable to execute even the best of your shots," Amanjot said after MI's penultimate-ball victory by 4 wickets. "I wanted to finish it off in the 19th over itself or at least bring it down to run-a-ball [if left to the final over] because I didn't want the new batter [G Kamilini] to be taking that pressure.

"I knew how and where Kanika bowls, because I've played with her so much. And it played out to the T. God's plan, really. I knew we needed either four boundaries or two sixes. And with Kanika's bowling, I knew what areas I could target that would be risk-free zones to secure those runs. I didn't want to leave it for the other batter then."

It wasn't all Harmanpreet's encouragement though, Amanjot was also making amends and following up on a personal resolution. MI's over-dependence on its star-studded top-five had resurfaced in the Vadodara leg as well. The defeat to Delhi Capitals in their tournament opener stung hard. Amanjot was third dismissed in a dramatic collapse of 7 for 35 that left MI with an under-par score, and eventually cost them two points albeit in a final-ball thriller.

Mumbai's lower-order woes this year have been further accentuated by the injury-forced withdrawal of star allrounder Pooja Vastrakar. For Amanjot, this was a chance to step up and repay the management's faith for the retention following an underwhelming WPL 2024.

"Even before the WPL started, I'd told my coach [Nagesh sir] and my trainer [Tanuja] that I'm going to finish matches for my team. I don't want to leave it to others. I sort of did that in the first game [of WPL 2025] and we ended up on the wrong side of the result. That's when I decided it's on me to finish games from here on.

"Between the Challengers and the WPL camp there was some time off, but because of the winter season in Chandigarh at the time, the wickets used to be wet all the time. Kiran [More, MI Women's General Manager] sir used to keep calling me even when I was at the NCA, to ask if I needed something, so I rang him up to ask I could start camp early. He called us to Baroda. I knew there would be more responsibility on me because Pooja wouldn't be there. I knew it would come down to me [to finish games] and I just had to do it myself."

This perspective was gained during an eight-month long injury layoff, amidst which being on MI's retention list was like the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel. Amanjot was laid low by a stress fracture of the back that required surgery, and a ligament tear in the hand following the last edition of WPL. She made her competitive comeback only in January for the one-day Challenger Trophy, having spent the better part of the T20 World Cup year at the NCA, rehabbing.

"No regrets, I'm very blessed and grateful that I went through that phase as well. It was such a crucial time for me. You do feel bad [being sidelined in a World Cup year]. It's never easy, to be honest. But it's on you how to take it. When the injury was diagnosed, I bugged my coach and trainer for about a week or two constantly asking 'why me'. I'm not a junk-food person, I never miss my fitness routine - so I couldn't fathom getting this injury, I never expected it.

"But, while at the NCA I consumed a lot of cricket. There was Riyan Parag here, Khaleel Ahmed, Suryakumar [Yadav] bhaiya was also here. So what if I wasn't allowed to play, I learnt so much watching, talking, observing their cricket. How they practice, what they talk about cricket, how they play their cricket, what they talk post-match - that was a learning experience. Whatever could help my cricket, I was up for it."

In Bengaluru, Amanjot put all those eight months worth of learnings to practice to ease one of MI's biggest worry lines. In some VIP stands of the M Chinnaswamy stadium, the Indian selectors took note of the match-winning cameo of 37* under pressure, and a 3-22 earlier to boot. In Panchkula and Mumbai, respectively, Nagesh and Tanuja shed happy tears.

She may have missed out on a T20 World Cup, but with an ODI home World Cup looming and no timeline set yet on Vastrakar's return, there wouldn't have been a better time for Amanjot to fly back onto the selectors' radar. The injury-ridden 2024 was a minor bump in the journey, and she's is set on dwelling on it too much.

"Hum banne hi udne ke liye hain. Thehraav ayega, but hum udna nahin bhoolenge [I'm born to fly. There'll be setbacks, but it can't clip my wings]."