Harmanpreet Kaur leaves the India captaincy after 155 T20Is

Harmanpreet Kaur stepped down as captain of the India women's team in all three formats on Tuesday. She said so in an Instagram post, and she said she will keep playing. The 37-year-old led India in five Tests, 51 ODIs and 155 T20Is. Her last job as captain was a second successive Asian Games gold, in Nisshin last month. The ICC listed the earlier gold as 2023.

The decision came a day after she, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and head coach Amol Muzumdar met BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia in Guwahati to talk about the team's roadmap. Cricinfo reported that meeting as the immediate setting. Mandhana has been deputy since 2022 and is the name most often mentioned as the next captain. The board had not announced a successor when Kaur posted.

She took the T20I captaincy in 2016. She became full-time ODI and Test captain in 2022 after Mithali Raj left international cricket. The largest result in the job was the 2025 Women's ODI World Cup, India's first global title in the format, won at home in November against South Africa. She also led the side to the Women's Asia Cup this September, then to the Asian Games defence. Al Jazeera noted that she is the longest-serving captain, among men and women, to have led in more than 150 T20Is.

The post was personal and specific. She wrote that the decision was not easy, and that it carried years of memories, sacrifices and moments that would stay with her. She said she had given the team her time and, many times, a part of her own game and personal ambitions. She said she was leaving the job with a full heart and with peace, because she believed the side was in a good place, with talent, character and belief. She said she was ready to play for the love of the game again, and that captaincy might end while her attachment to Indian cricket would not.

That split, captaincy ending and selection continuing, is the operational fact. India do not have to replace a batter and a captain in the same window. They do have to name a leader before the next international assignment, and they have to do it with Mandhana already in the room for the Guwahati meeting. The secretary, the coach and the two senior players were the people in that conversation. No other candidate has been put through the same public sequence.

The record she leaves is countable. Five Tests is a small sample, because India still play few of them. Fifty-one ODIs and 155 T20Is are not. The World Cup win is one match and one tournament. The Asian Games gold is a second title in three years, after 2023. The Asia Cup sits in the same month as the Games. A captain who has just defended two titles and won a first World Cup is an unusual person to vacate the job. She framed it as a choice made because the side was settled, not because a result had failed.

The BCCI has the next move. Saikia has the note from Guwahati. Mandhana has been vice-captain for four years. Kaur has said she wants to bat and field without the armband. Until the board writes a name on the next team sheet, the captaincy is vacant and the player is not. The post did not set a retirement date. It set an end to the role she has held in T20 cricket since 2016 and in the longer formats since 2022.