Harmanpreet Kaur becomes the first cricketer to captain in 150 T20 Internationals

No man or woman has led a national side in as many T20 internationals, and the India captain marked the landmark by finishing the chase herself

Harmanpreet Kaur became the first cricketer of either gender to captain a national side in 150 T20 internationals when she led India against Pakistan in their Women's Asia Cup group match at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

She then did what she has done for most of those 150 matches, and settled the game. With India closing on a small target, Harmanpreet took a four and a six off successive deliveries from Nashra Sandhu to end it.

India won by seven wickets after bowling Pakistan out for 55, and finished the group stage with three wins from three.

A record with daylight behind it

The margin is the striking part. Going into the match Harmanpreet had captained India in 149 T20 internationals, and the next name on the list is a long way back.

Sri Lanka's Chamari Athapaththu is second on 121, followed by Australia's Meg Lanning on 100, with England's Heather Knight and Rwanda's Diane Bimenyimana level on 96. In men's cricket the record belongs to Namibia's Gerhard Erasmus, who has led in 91.

Her record across those matches reads 86 wins, 57 defeats, one tie and five no-results, a win percentage of 57.71.

Longevity in the shortest format

Captaining 150 matches in a format that has existed for less than two decades requires two things at once: to be picked continuously, and to keep the job through the selection cycles that usually end a captaincy.

Harmanpreet has done both through a period in which India's women's programme changed shape entirely, from an occasional international schedule to a full calendar with a domestic T20 league attached to it.

She has led India through World Cups and Asia Cups, and the appointment has outlasted several changes of coach and selection panel.

The volume is partly a function of the format. T20 internationals are played in blocks of three and five, and a captain who holds the role for a decade accumulates matches quickly. But the same schedule ends most captaincies early, and hers has survived it.

The win percentage is the number that keeps the record from being purely about durability. A shade under 58 per cent across 149 matches, in a period when Australia set a standard almost nobody reached, is a competitive return.

The match itself

Pakistan's 55 settled the match inside the first innings. India's bowlers took wickets in clusters and never allowed a partnership to form, and the innings folded long before the twenty overs were used.

It left India chasing a target small enough that the only real question was who would be at the crease at the end. Harmanpreet made sure it was her.

The chase was a formality by the standards of an India-Pakistan fixture, and Harmanpreet's decision to finish it herself gave the occasion a tidy ending rather than a functional one.

India had already qualified for the semi-finals before the Pakistan match, which removed any competitive urgency from it and left the milestone as the story of the evening.

What comes next

India top Group A having beaten Thailand, Hong Kong and Pakistan, and go into the knockout stage as the side nobody in the tournament has troubled.

The semi-finals are scheduled for 10 and 11 September in Dubai, with India due to play in the first of them.

Whatever happens in that match, the number beside her name will keep moving, because there is no realistic prospect of anyone catching it soon.

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