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Follow UsWhen Jemimah Rodrigues was left out of India’s 2022 World Cup squad, she was shattered. Any cricketer’s dream is to play at the highest level, and for Jemimah, the World Cup was the pinnacle. She was doing well in T20Is and had also represented India in a couple of T20 World Cups, but the fact that she did not find her name in the ODI World Cup squad hurt her, and that affected her mentally; she revealed to her former coach WV Raman in a chat show.
“I was dropped from the ODI World Cup. I was going through a very bad phase mentally. Raman sir, you know me, you know how much I love cricket and how much it affects me. I was not Jem at home, and they knew it. I was trying to fake it for them. I was trying to be happy like all’s good; everything’s happy and good on the outside. But on the inside, I was hurting,” the batter had said.
As a result, she also did not play in the Senior One-Day Cup that season.
Did she warrant the axe?
She played five ODIs in 2021 and managed scores of 1, 9, 0, 8 and 4 in her five innings. After a fifth consecutive single-digit score against England in Worcester in July, she did not play a single match for the rest of the year. She received the team management’s backing as she was picked for the Australia tour but did not play a single game, and with her being dropped for the World Cup, she did not find herself in India’s plans for the entire 2022.
However, she continued to be part of India’s plans in T20Is, adding yet another T20 World Cup to her kitty, and most recently, she also got her maiden Test cap, further indicating that she remains an integral part of India’s set-up.
She knows what it is to be on the other side, and now, when she is perhaps in as good a form as she has ever been, she will certainly not take it for granted.
In the opening ODI against Australia, she walked in with India in a precarious position with her skipper Harmanpreet Kaur walking back to the pavilion in the 13th over. She held one end and did not throw it away. She knew better by now.
However, she was helped by contributions from Deepti Sharma (21), Amanjot Kaur (20) and, of course from, Yastika Bhatia, who fell just one short of a fifty.
Luckily, India had a long tail and someone of the calibre of Pooja Vastrakar, who walked in at eight. Another wicket could have been the difference between India getting bundled out for just 210 or reaching a competitive total like they did.
Jemimah paced her innings well. She did not panic when wickets were tumbling, swept well, and when she was set, she took on the bowling. She did not go gung-ho, playing rash shots or even try to match Vastrakar shot for shot.
While ODI cricket carries little to no relevance this year – in men’s or women’s cricket – given that there will be a T20 World Cup next year, a free-flowing Jemimah, on and off the field is a joy to watch regardless of whether who you support.
She has added a touch of responsibility to her repertoire, which is boding well with her and her side. With the mighty Mithali Raj no longer to dig India out of deep waters, she could very well fill her shoes in the long-run, alongside Harmanpreet in that middle-order.
She has grown in stature since that World Cup axe and has not looked back since.
Jemimah 2.0 is up and running.
