When Harmanpreet Kaur lifted India's first ever ICC Women's World Cup, the first call she made was to her younger brother Gurjinder Singh Bhullar.
Long before the World Cups, the captaincy, and the stardom, there was Moga, Punjab. Harmanpreet recalls, 'My brother is my first friend and my cheerleader. We grew up sharing one bat and he always let me go bat first.'
Today, even with the world's best coaches in her corner, Harmanpreet still picks up the phone for Gurjinder, who now lives in Australia.
'I call him to this day and ask — Garry, aaj achi rahi na batting — or just to get tips because he is such a talented cricketer himself,' Harmanpreet says.
'He being the youngest always had the privilege to do what he loves and I feel it's my responsibility to spoil him and give him the best life I always dreamt of.'
Gurjinder recalls a childhood memory that says everything about the two of them. 'She would sit me on the front of her bicycle and ride in the heat. Whenever I refused, she told me her bicycle had a radio. She would sing to me the entire ride and I assumed it was the radio and not her.'
Opening the batting against the boys, Harman used to play with her brother and her cousins, and that is when Garru noticed something special, 'She was an opening batter and we all just treated her as a batter and not a girl because she was that good.'
And behind the fierce captain the world sees on the field? Gurjinder knows exactly who she really is. 'She is still a kid. Same laughs, same things make her happy. And she is not as aggressive as she looks on the field.'
