Captain Harmanpreet Kaur posed with her hard-earned 2025 Women’s World Cup trophy in front of the Gateway of India in Mumbai, recreating the 14-year-old iconic MS Dhoni photograph with the equivalent trophy of men’s competitions.
The photos fittingly came after India’s women’s and men’s first wins in a home World Cup, with both equally crucial for the country’s sporting trajectory.
Dhoni’s men beat Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium in front of a packed crowd to clinch their title, ending a 28-year-long wait for the biggest trophy in the sport. Harmanpreet’s women trumped South Africa by 52 runs at a sold-out DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai in front, lifting the title for the first time in 47 years since the country made its first appearance in the competition.
Check the photos here:
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📸 Captain Harmanpreet Kaur with the prestigious ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Trophy 🏆😍#TeamIndia | #WomenInBlue | #CWC25 | #Champions | @ImHarmanpreet pic.twitter.com/2CMt4X3Rxi
— BCCI Women (@BCCIWomen) November 3, 2025
Dhoni and Harmanpreet, incidentally, wear the same number 7. However, unlike Dhoni, who surprised his fans with a new bald look for the photo, Harmanpreet didn’t do anything like it.
Interestingly, India’s 2011 and 2025 World Cup campaigns share striking parallels. Both were home tournaments co-hosted with Sri Lanka, carrying the dual weight of privilege and pressure.
The 2011 men edged past defending champions Australia in a tense quarter-final, which proved their credentials to the world, while the 2025 women dethroned Alyssa Healy’s Kangaroos and defending champions with a record chase in the semi-final.
The 2011 win’s impact is being observed more and more now, with young cricketers revealing that that night in Mumbai was what got them hooked to the sport. The same is expected of this 2025 triumph.
“The thing is coming from a place like this, Harmanpreet Kaur would have seen a lot of disappointments,” former India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said on his YouTube channel. “The 2017 World Cup final, for instance, where they beat Australia and lost to England in the final. Jhulan Goswami was there. Harmanpreet Kaur has seen such things. She has faced defeats. She has seen defeats from situations where the World Cup could have been won. From the outside, you may not be a witness to the effort she has put in. The seed she has sown, after 10 or 20 years, how Kapil Dev sowed it, how Dhoni sowed it in 2011 or 2007, like how we talk about those, we will talk about this as well.”
