MATCH STORIES
Follow UsImagine waiting for the longest time for the best version of something.
You are always anticipating. It is always threatening to happen, but alas, you return to your old ways.
At that point, the frustration levels are at an all-time peak. You absolutely hate that feeling to the core.
It has been the case that surrounds Jemimah Rodrigues for the longest time. It has been the frustration of the highest order, and where that final step will come from has been the question.
If the clash against Mumbai on March 5 (Tuesday) and today against Bangalore (March 10) is indicative of anything, it is that the promised self of Jemimah Rodrigues is here.
That version is absolutely breathing fire. What’s always kept Jemimah quite elevated from the other talents in the country is her cricketing IQ. She’s perhaps the cleverest of all batters in the country; she is always a step ahead of the bowlers.
In the clash against Mumbai, she bossed her battle against Nat-Sciver Brunt, one of the best all-rounders in world cricket. She beat the English all-rounder in her own game, putting her plan in shambles. Jemimah's knock was about her throwing the pacers’ plans out of the window.
But today, it was spinners.
RCB have been heavily dependent on their spinners thus far in the tournament. So, that battle was going to set the match ablaze, and it did. Jemimah took no time whatsoever to greet Asha Sobhana with a thundering sweep.
Even the greatest of surgeons would have prayed to have such precision. There was no chance for either of the fielders to get a hand on that ball. It was drilled, and the celebration came from the youngster, who pumped her wrist immediately.
Sophie Molineux, a veteran herself, was smashed like she was a club-level cricketer. Jemimah didn’t just do that with brute but with the brain. First, she swept past the fine-leg fielder before crunching a smashing sweep between the vacant square-leg boundary. It caused Molineux to err in her line and length.
The very next delivery was a drag down, only for Jemimah to smash the absolute leather of it, showing how she had undone the most experienced opposition bowlers with her quick thinking and destructive sweeps.
In just four deliveries, Jemimah accessed boundaries that one seldom does in such a short span of time. Sweep, pull, cut, tuck one off the pads, one shot after the other, forcing her friend Smriti Mandhana to pull a strand or two of her hair trying to set up a field.
When Georgia Wareham got to bowl her second over against Jemimah, it felt like RCB had already given up. Jemimah had made an absolute mess of RCB’s plans, especially the spin unit, with the right-hander scoring 49 off 28 deliveries, striking at 175.
Not just that, against the tweakers, she found the boundaries with relative ease, scoring one every 3.5 deliveries. What’s more astonishing is that she had a control % of 89.3 while attacking the spinners on 75% of the occasions.
Seven boundaries, one six, 49 runs, and a massive dent to RCB’s play-off hopes. What made it even more impressive was that she wasn’t afraid to pull out a range of shots against the spinners at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
Anything wide and away from her reach was punished with a strike-rate of 246.2, scoring 32 off just 13 deliveries. Anything on the pads, you don’t even have to ask; it was swept away for a four. Jemimah was a menace for the RCB spin unit.
So, what made RCB’s spin unit err their line and length?
Jemimah’s ability to sweep to the tilt was something that everyone was well aware of. RCB bowlers also planned for that, but then the youngster just worked around at her crease, making room to access the vacant square-leg boundary.
When they realised she was well into sweeping, they tried bowling it wide, to which Jemimah played it off her back foot. Once they overcorrected that, she drove them inside out, all moving excellently around the crease. Off the front foot against spinners, she scored 31 off just 16 deliveries, striking at 193.8.
Off her back foot, she scored nine off seven. When deep inside her crease, she struck at 200.
That’s what set her apart from all the competition. In this tournament thus far, bowling spin to Jemimah has been perhaps the dumbest move from the opposition captains. It is almost a no-go, given her ability to manoeuvre, spin, and make a joke out of the opposition.
With a minimum of five overs against spin, Jemimah has the second-best strike-rate in the competition, only behind Kiran Navgire, scoring at 158.5. Unlike Navgire, she only gets out once every 65 deliveries, only behind Harmanpreet Kaur, Meghana, Deepti Sharma and Amelia Kerr.
Her cricketing IQ is good enough to know what exactly the bowler would do, and where she can counter them without taking a lot of risk.
If Harmanpreet Kaur were sitting and watching this match in her hotel room, she would be the happiest. Having someone with a cricketing IQ like Jemimah's is rare, and then having someone of her calibre against spin is rarer, and that’s where India have hit the jackpot.
With the upcoming T20 World Cup in Bangladesh, Jemimah has shown her captain that she has all the tools to be the numero-uno against spin.
