For practically a decade, Jemimah Rodrigues’ life as an Indian cricket star has been marked by an attention-grabbing duality – that of a classical batter formed by Mumbai’s wealthy legacy and a social media darling strumming her guitar between matches.
But amid the T20 World Cups, franchise contracts, and viral reels, one dream remained unfulfilled. Jemimah has represented India in 4 T20 World occasions, thrilling audiences along with her silken cowl drives and late-innings composure. Yet, the 50-over showpiece — nonetheless probably the most coveted stage within the ladies’s recreation, identical to for males cricketers — has all the time eluded her.
The upcoming Women’s ODI World Cup– returning to India after 12 years – will lastly change that.
“This is my first ODI World Cup,” she stated with a smile that reveals pleasure and aid in equal elements. “I think the wait makes it special.”
It is a wait that stretches again to a specific evening in 2011.
On April 2, nearly each Indian family soaked within the celebrations of a 28-year itch being lastly over. The complete nation erupted as Mahendra Singh Dhoni lofted a six into the stands on the iconic Wankhede Stadium to seal India’s World Cup triumph. But Jemimah – then all however 10 years of age – has a totally different lasting reminiscence from the day.
Her household’s Bandra dwelling stands a cricket ball’s distance from Sachin Tendulkar’s residence.
“When Sachin sir returned, the road outside our house was jam-packed,” she recalled. It would have taken the automotive greater than an hour to cross the final 100 metres to his residence.
“His car could barely move. It showed me what a World Cup means in India.”
Six years later, a 16-year-old Jemimah was a part of a group of promising children from the Mumbai Cricket Association who have been requested to welcome the Indian ladies’s group on the Mumbai Airport.
Jemimah Rodrigues in motion towards Australia within the opening match of the latest ODI collection.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
The facet was headed again after a historic marketing campaign the place it despatched defending champion Australia dwelling within the semifinals, driving on Harmanpreet Kaur’s now legendary unbeaten 171. The facet narrowly missed out on clinching its first world title, falling to England within the ultimate.
By then, Jemimah had heard of the ladies’s cricket group nearly going unnoticed at airports all around the nation. But 2017 was totally different.
Harmanpreet’s heroics had captured the nation’s consideration. Suddenly, the facet was all around the information, regardless of lacking out on the trophy by a whisker.
“The airport was packed,” Jemimah remembered. “That’s when I knew women’s cricket had truly arrived.”
Those two nights — one in 2011, one other in 2017 — bookend the spark that turned a recreation she loved into a calling she couldn’t ignore.
Early highs and a painful low
From there, Jemimah’s rise was inevitable.
While her straightforward attraction made her a pure favorite with followers, Mumbai’s maidans toughened her strokeplay and temperament. By 18, she was a common in India’s T20I facet.
However, underwhelming returns within the ODI format meant she was dropped from ODIs in 2021. Her omission then for the World Cup the following 12 months wasn’t fully surprising. That didn’t imply it harm any much less.
“That was the worst moment of my career,” she admitted. “But looking back, it’s one of the best things that happened to me. Every setback is a set-up for a greater comeback.”
The weeks that adopted have been a take a look at of resolve. Jemimah took a psychological break, wept by means of lonely nights, after which returned to the grind along with her father Ivan and long-time coach Prashant Shetty.
They devised a coaching routine designed to make her uncomfortable: early-morning periods on damp Azad Maidan pitches the place the ball skidded, adopted by afternoon matches on sq. turners towards high-quality Mumbai boys’ groups. Some days she confronted under-12 prodigies, different days under-19 quicks. The objective was easy — to pressure adaptability.
“When you can bat on those tracks,” she stated, “international cricket feels easier.”
Jemimah Rodrigues.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI
The work paid off. A extra full batter emerged, one able to anchoring a chase in addition to clearing the infield. In the 18 months since that disappointment, Jemimah has turn out to be the fulcrum of India’s middle-order and a prized recruit in leagues from The Hundred to the Women’s Premier League.
Fitness, religion, and reinvention
Jemimah has prioritised health simply as a lot or greater than she reveres approach.
“You can have the skill, but you need the stamina to last — especially in a 50-over game,” she defined. Her routine is designed to maintain her sharp, irrespective of the stage of the sport or the variety of balls confronted.
Her latest signing with Red Bull opened up one other dimension in direction of that finish, with Jemimah getting access to elite coaching amenities in Austria.
“It’s more than a sponsorship,” she famous. “They are helping me reach my highest potential.”
A religious Christian, Jemimah leans on spirituality to regular the thoughts throughout cricket’s inevitable swings. “When things are shaking around me, I know Jesus is the rock that holds me steady,” she says softly. “Even when it looks bad, something good is going to happen.”
It is that this mix of bodily preparation and inside calm that has allowed her to stability two public identities: the cricketer and the entertainer.
Torch-bearer
For purists, Jemimah represents extra than simply youthful aptitude. Her textbook cowl drive completely attracts from Mumbai’s grand batting lineage — from Vijay Merchant, Sunil Gavaskar, and Sachin Tendulkar to Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal. In the ladies’s recreation, she is the torch-bearer of that custom, a reminder that classical approach nonetheless has a place within the period of franchise fireworks.
That heritage provides an additional layer of that means to her first ODI World Cup. The 2025 version might be staged in India, providing the uncommon probability to carry out in entrance of household, pals, and the very maidans that formed her recreation. “A World Cup at home is every cricketer’s dream,” she stated. “To finally be part of it is something I have prayed for.”
Her position might be pivotal. India’s center order has usually lacked consistency in latest tournaments, and Jemimah’s means to each drop anchor and swap gears makes her the best bridge between the strokemakers up prime and the finishers beneath. A profitable marketing campaign might cement her standing as one of the crucial full batters of her era.
As the World Cup approaches, Jemimah stays characteristically upbeat — chatty in press conferences and mischievous with teammates, with the guitar all the time inside attain. But beneath the bubbly exterior is a competitor hardened by adversity, somebody who understands how shortly fortunes can change.
The woman who as soon as squeezed by means of a crowd to catch a glimpse of Tendulkar on a magical April evening now stands on the cusp of her personal World Cup second. The years of ready, the heartbreak of 2022, the lonely hours on unforgiving maidans — all of it results in this event.
“I want to be the same at the end of the 300th ball as I am at the first,” she added, a line that might function each a health mantra and a metaphor for her profession.
Steady, unrelenting, and at last the place she belongs.
