Trust, Timing, and the Long Game

Yesterday, India’s women’s cricket team won the World Cup. Maybe not Brussels’ biggest story, but for Indians everywhere it was everything—tears, disbelief, and the look that says: we belong.

After years of being sidelined as “lucky to be here,” this was the release of years spent proving they belonged.

Moments like that remind us what happens when talent finally meets trust. When people who’ve been underestimated are given the space, support, and belief they always deserved.

And in a strange way, it’s not so different from what many of us experience at work — the shift from surviving under bad leadership to finally being in a place that lets you breathe again.

But even then, the body remembers. I call this the hangover of fear — the reflexes learned in survival mode. You over-deliver to stay safe, equate exhaustion with excellence, and treat calm as suspicious. Those habits don’t disappear when the culture changes; they fade only when safety becomes something you can feel, not just read about in a policy.

The long game of trust

Here’s some background for those who don’t follow cricket. For years, India’s women cricketers played on the margins — borrowed gear, uneven pay, quiet stadiums. They learned to perform without applause. And still, they showed up.

Their coach, Amol Muzumdar, knows something about that kind of perseverance. A prodigious batter with more than 11,000 first-class runs, he was once destined for international stardom. But timing and circumstance kept him out of the Indian Test side.

He could have turned bitter. He didn’t. He stayed in the game — coaching, mentoring, building others. When he took charge of the women’s team, he brought no theatrics, no hunger for the spotlight. He brought belief.

Muzumdar understood what it feels like to give everything and still be overlooked. So he built a culture where no one would have to feel that way again — one that replaced fear with freedom. Under him, the team played braver cricket.

That’s what good leadership does. It trusts you before you fully trust yourself. It gives you permission to play boldly, to fail safely, and to grow together.

Unlearning survival

In any workplace, that’s the real shift: moving from protection to participation. You test the waters — ask a question instead of pretending you already know, speak without rehearsing, celebrate a colleague’s success without calculating what it means for yours.

Every small act retrains the mind from defence to contribution. And as you do, you start to notice others doing the same — the quiet colleague finding their voice, the team relaxing into collective confidence.

And I can already hear the scepticism: “That will never happen in Brussels.”

Don’t. Don’t wait for it. You are a leader — whether by title or by example. You are the coach who can bring about that change.

You are Brussels’ Muzumdar — once a brilliant batter who never got his chance, now the coach who helps others make history. He led with empathy, not ego. He trusted before being trusted back.

That’s your playbook too.

The quiet revolution

The Indian women’s cricket team won because they learned to trust the coach (not the system) that trusted them back — because a coach who’d once been sidelined chose to build differently.

That’s what turns good teams into great ones — not perfection, but safety. Not control, but trust.

So yes, celebrate the win. But also notice what it represents — what happens when people stop surviving and start playing. When leadership becomes less about being seen, and more about letting others be seen.

And for those of us Indians in Brussels — watching from cafés where cricket scores scroll quietly at the bottom of the screen — it’s a small reminder of why we care. Because even from here, we recognise the feeling of being underestimated, and the joy of finally being believed in.

Shweta writes about leadership, culture, and the human side of work for A Better Brussels.

Photo credit: Harmanpreet Kaur of India celebrates with teammate Jemimah Rodrigues following victory in the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup India 2025 final [Pankaj Nangia/Getty Images]