Harmanpreet Kaur steps down as India captain across all three formats

Harmanpreet Kaur has given up the India captaincy in all three formats, weeks after leading the side to a second successive Asian Games gold

Harmanpreet, 37, announced the decision on Instagram on Tuesday and will carry on as a player. "Today, I step down as captain of the Indian Women's Cricket Team across all formats," she wrote. "This is not an easy decision."

She leaves having led India in 150 T20Is, more than any other cricketer of either sex, and having delivered the country its first senior world title at the 2025 Women's World Cup.

The timing leaves the selectors little room. Zimbabwe arrive this month for their first bilateral tour of India, and the opening T20I is in Raipur on October 16.

A decision announced on Instagram

Harmanpreet framed the move as a handover rather than a withdrawal. "Every decision I made was with one intention," she wrote, saying it was to make the team better and to give other players the opportunity to grow.

"I have seen it all. I have seen the lowest moments, the heartbreak, the criticism, the doubts and the days when nothing seemed to go our way," she wrote.

She closed with a line that made clear her career is not over: "Captaincy may end today, but my love for Indian cricket never will." She added that she was "ready to play for the love of the game again".

The BCCI had not issued a statement on the captaincy at the time of writing, and no successor has been named.

A record spell in charge

Harmanpreet took over the one-day and Test captaincy in 2022, when Mithali Raj retired, having already been leading the T20I side.

In September, during the Women's Asia Cup, she became the first cricketer to captain a national side in 150 T20Is. Sri Lanka's Chamari Athapaththu is next on the list among women with 121.

The World Cup that reset the record

The defining result came at home in 2025, when India beat South Africa in the final to win the Women's World Cup and the country's first senior ICC title.

It ended a sequence of near misses that had followed the side through two previous World Cup campaigns, and it is the achievement her captaincy will be measured by.

Asia Cup and Asian Games in three weeks

Her final months in the job were the most decorated. India beat Sri Lanka by 72 runs in the Women's Asia Cup final in Dubai on September 13, a record-extending eighth title, with Shafali Verma making 68 and Smriti Mandhana 59.

Days later in Japan they defended their Asian Games title, beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs after posting 216 for 3, the highest total in the competition's history. Mandhana made 79 off 45, Richa Ghosh 48 off 22 and Deepti Sharma took 3-6.

Harmanpreet herself contributed 19 off 17 in that final, a measure of how far the batting around her had developed.

A successor to find before Zimbabwe

Smriti Mandhana was named her vice-captain for the Asian Games and is the senior figure in the squad, but the selection committee has yet to announce who takes over.

The decision cannot wait long. Zimbabwe play three T20Is in Raipur on October 16, 18 and 20, then three ODIs in Baroda on October 23, 25 and 28.

It is the first bilateral series between the two sides, and the one-day leg counts towards the ICC Women's Championship 2025-29, which decides qualification for the next 50-over World Cup.

India's next assignment is the first T20I against Zimbabwe in Raipur on October 16.

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