Amol Muzumdar: The man who never played for India, but found his India

The final moments had barely faded when Amol Muzumdar quietly stepped back, watching the tricolor unfurl under the floodlights of DY Patil Stadium on Sunday.

The Indian women’s team huddled together, tears and laughter blurring into one joyous blur. Cameras followed the players; fireworks crackled overhead.

Amid the chaos, he simply smiled, quiet, proud, perhaps a little overwhelmed. It was a night of celebration for India. But for Muzumdar, it was also the night his life came full circle.

For years, he had carried the label of Indian cricket’s great unfinished story: the boy wonder who never wore the India cap.

Now, as the coach who had guided the women’s team to their maiden World Cup, that unspoken void in his life had finally been filled, not by personal triumph, but by something larger.

Through them, he had found his India.

The eternal next man in

Born in Mumbai in 1974, Muzumdar grew up in the same cricketing nursery that produced legends.

At Sharadashram Vidyamandir, under the stern but nurturing eye of Ramakant Achrekar, he trained alongside Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli. The dusty pitches of Shivaji Park were his home, his temple, his dreamscape.

There’s a photograph somewhere from those years of two teenage prodigies, Tendulkar and Kambli, walking off after their record-shattering 664-run stand in the Harris Shield.

Just outside the frame was another boy, pads on, helmet in hand, waiting endlessly for his turn. Muzumdar was the next man in that day, padded up through every over, never getting to bat. It was a moment that would quietly foreshadow the pattern of his cricketing life, always ready, always waiting.

In the early 1990s, he seemed destined for greatness.

His first-class debut for Mumbai was the stuff of dreams, a majestic 260 against Haryana, a world record for a debutant at the time. The cricketing world took notice.

His strokeplay was elegant, his temperament unflappable. But even as he kept scoring, year after year, run after run but the doors to the Indian team stayed shut.

The cruel timing of destiny played its part. India’s middle order, in those years, belonged to some of the greatest batters to grace the sport: Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman.

There was no vacancy for the mortal who kept knocking from outside. Muzumdar’s numbers – over 11,000 first class runs and 30 centuries – told one story. While his fate told another.

He kept going, season after season, with the quiet endurance of someone who had made peace with heartbreak. In 2003, he almost gave it up but the love for the sport pulled him back.

That love became his compass. He captained Mumbai to Ranji Trophy glory, then went east to Assam and south to Andhra, taking his professionalism and patience with him. In his first season with Assam, Muzumdar helped the northeastern team qualify for elite level Ranji Trophy for the first time in history.

And when it was time to step aside, he did so gracefully, literally giving up his place so that younger players could play.

That selflessness became his signature. To teammates, he was more mentor than star. To opponents, he was the man everyone respected but few truly knew, polite, precise, quietly intense. 

When he retired in 2014, he did so without fanfare, but with purpose.

Coaching, he realized, was the next innings, one where he could give others what he himself had been denied. He began small, working with India’s Under-19 and Under-23 sides, mentoring at the IPL with Rajasthan Royals, and later assisting South Africa and the Netherlands.

Everywhere he went, his reputation grew, not as a flamboyant tactician but as a teacher who understood people.

Two years later, in 2025, his philosophy bore fruit.

India's Ted Lasso?

The World Cup campaign had begun shakily. A couple of early losses, an uncertain batting order, murmurs of doubt.

But Muzumdar’s approach never changed, calm, steady, unflappable. In the semi-final against Australia, his words in the dugout, “We just need one more run,” became a quiet anthem of belief.

And in the final, when India edged past South Africa by 52 runs, those words seemed prophetic.

Captain Harmanpreet Kaur later spoke about how Muzumdar instilled belief in the team, a quiet conviction that made all the difference when the pressure was at its peak.

Jemimah Rodrigues often described him as the steady presence who brought calm, no matter how tense the situation became.

“It’s a watershed moment,” Amol said again, when asked what it meant to him. “Not just for women’s cricket,  for Indian cricket. For every cricketer who’s ever waited, who’s ever believed that their time would come.”

Sachin Tendulkar called him “the unsung hero of Mumbai cricket.” Rohit Sharma said he was “the man who gave his whole heart to the game.” But Muzumdar, as always, deflected the praise.

“I’m speechless,” he told reporters. “Absolutely proud. They deserve every bit of this moment. The hard work, the belief, they’ve made every Indian proud.”

Maybe so. But for those who have followed his journey, from the boy who waited endlessly for a turn to bat, to the man who built India’s biggest moment in women’s cricket, it was hard not to see this as destiny finally turning around.

Amol Muzumdar never played for India. He never wore the blue cap, never stood for the anthem before a match.

And yet, on that night in Mumbai, as the Indian flag soared and the women he coached lifted the World Cup high, he finally got what every cricketer dreams of, his India moment.

After all, everything’s written somewhere. And in the end, everyone gets what they truly deserve.