For Jemimah, a long-awaited ODI World Cup dream comes true

For astir a decade, Jemimah Rodrigues’ beingness arsenic an Indian cricket prima has been marked by an absorbing duality – that of a classical batter shaped by Mumbai’s affluent bequest and a societal media darling strumming her guitar betwixt matches.

But amid the T20 World Cups, franchise contracts, and viral reels, 1 imagination remained unfulfilled. Jemimah has represented India successful 4 T20 World events, thrilling audiences with her silken screen drives and late-innings composure. Yet, the 50-over showpiece — inactive the astir coveted signifier successful the women’s game, conscionable similar for men cricketers — has ever eluded her.

The upcoming Women’s ODI World Cup– returning to India aft 12 years – volition yet alteration that.

“This is my archetypal ODI World Cup,” she said with a grin that reveals excitement and alleviation successful adjacent parts. “I deliberation the hold makes it special.”

It is simply a hold that stretches backmost to a peculiar nighttime successful 2011.

On April 2, virtually each Indian household soaked successful the celebrations of a 28-year itch being yet over. The full state erupted arsenic Mahendra Singh Dhoni lofted a six into the stands astatine the iconic Wankhede Stadium to seal India’s World Cup triumph. But Jemimah – past each but 10 years of property – has a antithetic lasting representation from the day.

Her family’s Bandra location stands a cricket ball’s region from Sachin Tendulkar’s residence.

“When Sachin sir returned, the roadworthy extracurricular our location was jam-packed,” she recalled. It would person taken the car much than an hr to transverse the past 100 metres to his residence.

“His car could hardly move. It showed maine what a World Cup means successful India.”

Six years later, a 16-year-old Jemimah was portion of a radical of promising youngsters from the Mumbai Cricket Association who were asked to invited the Indian women’s squad astatine the Mumbai Airport.

The broadside was headed backmost aft a historical run wherever it sent defending champion Australia location successful the semifinals, riding connected Harmanpreet Kaur’s present legendary unbeaten 171. The broadside narrowly missed retired connected clinching its archetypal satellite title, falling to England successful the final.

By then, Jemimah had heard of the women’s cricket squad virtually going unnoticed astatine airports each implicit the country. But 2017 was different.

Harmanpreet’s heroics had captured the nation’s attention. Suddenly, the broadside was each implicit the news, contempt missing retired connected the trophy by a whisker.

“The airdrome was packed,” Jemimah remembered. “That’s erstwhile I knew women’s cricket had genuinely arrived.”

Those 2 nights — 1 successful 2011, different successful 2017 — bookend the spark that turned a crippled she enjoyed into a calling she could not ignore.

Early highs and a achy low

From there, Jemimah’s emergence was inevitable.

While her casual charm made her a earthy favourite with fans, Mumbai’s maidans toughened her strokeplay and temperament. By 18, she was a regular successful India’s T20I side.

However, underwhelming returns successful the ODI format meant she was dropped from ODIs successful 2021. Her omission past for the World Cup the adjacent twelvemonth wasn’t wholly unexpected. That didn’t mean it wounded immoderate less.

“That was the worst infinitesimal of my career,” she admitted. “But looking back, it’s 1 of the champion things that happened to me. Every setback is simply a set-up for a greater comeback.”

The weeks that followed were a trial of resolve. Jemimah took a intelligence break, wept done lonely nights, and past returned to the grind with her begetter Ivan and long-time manager Prashant Shetty.

They devised a grooming regular designed to marque her uncomfortable: early-morning sessions connected damp Azad Maidan pitches wherever the shot skidded, followed by day matches connected quadrate turners against high-quality Mumbai boys’ teams. Some days she faced under-12 prodigies, different days under-19 quicks. The extremity was elemental — to unit adaptability.

“When you tin bat connected those tracks,” she said, “international cricket feels easier.”

The enactment paid off. A much implicit batter emerged, 1 susceptible of anchoring a pursuit arsenic good arsenic clearing the infield. In the 18 months since that disappointment, Jemimah has go the fulcrum of India’s middle-order and a prized enlistee successful leagues from The Hundred to the Women’s Premier League.

Fitness, faith, and reinvention

Jemimah has prioritised fittingness conscionable arsenic overmuch oregon much than she reveres technique.

“You tin person the skill, but you request the stamina to past — particularly successful a 50-over game,” she explained. Her regimen is designed to support her sharp, nary substance the signifier of the crippled oregon the fig of balls faced.

Her caller signing with Red Bull opened up different magnitude towards that end, with Jemimah gaining entree to elite grooming facilities successful Austria.

“It’s much than a sponsorship,” she noted. “They are helping maine scope my highest potential.”

A devout Christian, Jemimah leans connected spirituality to dependable the caput during cricket’s inevitable swings. “When things are shaking astir me, I cognize Jesus is the stone that holds maine steady,” she says softly. “Even erstwhile it looks bad, thing bully is going to happen.”

It is this blend of carnal mentation and interior calm that has allowed her to equilibrium 2 nationalist identities: the cricketer and the entertainer.

Torch-bearer

For purists, Jemimah represents much than conscionable youthful flair. Her textbook screen thrust perfectly draws from Mumbai’s expansive batting lineage — from Vijay Merchant, Sunil Gavaskar, and Sachin Tendulkar to Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal. In the women’s game, she is the torch-bearer of that tradition, a reminder that classical method inactive has a spot successful the epoch of franchise fireworks.

That practice adds an other furniture of meaning to her archetypal ODI World Cup. The 2025 variation volition beryllium staged successful India, offering the uncommon accidental to execute successful beforehand of family, friends, and the precise maidans that shaped her game. “A World Cup astatine location is each cricketer’s dream,” she said. “To yet beryllium portion of it is thing I person prayed for.”

Her relation volition beryllium pivotal. India’s mediate bid has often lacked consistency successful caller tournaments, and Jemimah’s quality to some driblet anchor and power gears makes her the perfect span betwixt the strokemakers up apical and the finishers below. A palmy run could cement her presumption arsenic 1 of the astir implicit batters of her generation.

As the World Cup approaches, Jemimah remains characteristically upbeat — chatty successful property conferences and mischievous with teammates, with the guitar ever wrong reach. But beneath the bubbly exterior is simply a rival hardened by adversity, idiosyncratic who understands however rapidly fortunes tin change.

The miss who erstwhile squeezed done a assemblage to drawback a glimpse of Tendulkar connected a magical April nighttime present stands astatine the cusp of her ain World Cup moment. The years of waiting, the heartbreak of 2022, the lonely hours connected unforgiving maidans — each of it leads to this tournament.

“I privation to beryllium the aforesaid astatine the extremity of the 300th shot arsenic I americium astatine the first,” she added, a enactment that could service arsenic some a fittingness mantra and a metaphor for her career.

Steady, unrelenting, and yet wherever she belongs.