Can Mithali Raj and company. create history at Lord’s and follow the likes of Kapil Dev and Sourav Ganguly? India hopes for one more shot at redemption when they play England in the final of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. It’s been 34 years since Kapil Dev lifted the trophy in cricket’s Mecca back in 1983, when India beat the mighty West Indies by 43 runs. India established its identity as a cricketing nation that day, and the entire nation believed that India could also be a world champion.

In 1989, India saw the advent of a new promise in the form of Sachin Tendulkar, who not only emerged as the best batsman of the modern era, but also changed the identity of cricket in India. With his class and caliber, Indian cricket soon transformed from a sport to a religion. However, India was seen as underperforming abroad, which was contingent on the individual brilliance of players like Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin. They hardly won any overseas games as they bet on individual contributions only.

However, Indian Cricket’s mindset changed with an aggressive and fearless leader in Sourav Ganguly, who stood up to the tough competitive teams. India started playing as a team rather than a group of talented individual cricketers. India started winning games abroad and beat all the teams in their own backyard. India made history at Lords, beating England on their home turf by chasing a massive total of 326 runs that no one dreams of achieving. With a bunch of talented young cricketers and some senior professionals, India rose from No.8 to No. 2 in the ICC Test Equipment Ranking.

This Indian women’s cricket team has the same fighting spirit. She has done fabulously well at the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. Under the dynamic leadership of Mithali Raj, the team has really raised high hopes of glory after beating the mighty Australians to enter the final. There have been some brilliant performances in both the batting and bowling department. With Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and captain Mithali Raj scoring centuries in crucial matches and excellent bowling performances from senior professional Jhulan Goswami and youngster Deepti Sharma, India can certainly look forward to hoisting the trophy if they execute their plans on the big day. However, they play against a dangerous England, which has been three times champions.

So India, even after comfortably beating England in the group stage match, will be the underdog as they look to improve on their record of finishing second in 2005. Only time will tell, if Mithali Raj and co. It will follow in the footsteps of Kapil Dev and his 1983 World Cup-winning team, and the prayers of 1.3 billion people will be answered or not.