Be a Jemimah Rodrigues and you’ll be fine — a lesson on the power of selfbelief

The layman will not know of the countless trials by fire she has had to go through; those who are in the know realise it through the human side she’s never afraid to bare

hitting a lean patch), sorry for that. I did score runs. I think the first two games I got some good scores. In one game, I got one ball and I hit a four, strike rate of 400,” Jemimah quipped, always one to make a joke at her own expense.

When the laughter eased, Jemimah got real, much like how her teammates and friends did in the runup to the MI vs DC WPL fixture.

“In those two innings, I was trying to be something I was not. I was seeing everyone around me go out there and go bang bang. I thought I needed to do it for the team.I think cricket is a game where you need to keep improving. When you’re coming into the WPL, you never know when you will need all sorts of shots. I can’t stick to one thing and say I’m this kind of a player and stick to that. I need to keep improving with the game,” she explained.

Cheering up the cheerleader

Jemimah is one of the best hype men around. She’s there to celebrate your fifty harder than you, she’s there to pump you up for a direct hit well done, or catch well taken. So when the team’s biggest cheerleader needed some cheering herself, the team and her extended support system stepped up.

“I’ve spoken a lot to Arundhati

(Reddy). She helped me a lot as has Larris (Laura Harris). She is the one who came up to me and said, ‘You have such good hands, you manoeuvre the field so well. Just stick to that. That will help you.’ After that, Smriti (Mandhana) messaged me saying ‘Don’t try to be someone else, be a Jemimah Rodrigues and you’ll be fine.’

“I spoke to my dad too and he said the same. ‘Just play your game, just be positive and and you know, just be you and you find the gaps effortlessly. The people who hit up that is their strength but no one can pick gaps the way you pick gaps. So I think if you just stick to your strengths, it’s going to help you a lot.’ Today too, even before walking into the field, Lisa (Keightley), our coach, came to me and said the same thing. ‘I understand how it feels when you see everyone around you is going a certain way, but. Just sticking to your strengths is going to help the team and it’s going to help you because you are a very valuable member for our team.’”

The result? An energetic knock that took Delhi Capitals to 192, in its first home fixture, a comfortably competitive score against a ridiculously good opponent

The Mumbaibased batter began cautiously, as she does. She took her time to get a feel of the Delhi pitch which has a reputation of facilitating big scores despite being a bit on the slower side.

Finding her rhythm

She got going from the 17th delivery of her innings, thumping Shabnim Ismail between longon and deep mid wicket for four. Jemimah made best use of wayward lines from MI to step out of her crease and make room to pick the gaps. One shot in particular stood out — a very notJemimahish hooked six over fineleg after stepping well outside off. Radha Yadav was seen applauding excitedly with the rest of the dugout, while MI skipper Harmanpreet Kaur was left stunned.

“I don’t remember the last time I’ve played in Delhi, especially at the Kotla. Having played in other parts of India, this wicket was very similar to the wickets in Ranchi, which are low, but it comes on the bat and I think that suits my game a lot. Even in my stance, I stayed a little low because there was no bounce. So if you stay lower, it’s easier to time the ball and hit through the gaps,” Jemimah said, while breaking down her knock.

This was advice she was happy to share with every batter who joined her in the middle. It made for an amusing sight to watch her belt down instructions to veterans like Meg Lanning and Marizanne Kapp, sprinkling it with generous fist bumps and screams of encouragement.

“When Meg came on, she was used to the conditions so she initially talked me through the conditions. Once I got used to it, Marizanne was here by then, I kept telling her where they were going to target us. The boundaries were short and so the MI bowlers kept going wide. So I told her they’re going to target her wide and I told her about the slow wicket. I told her to stay low because there was a lot of difference in bounce from what we saw in Chinnaswamy and how it is here. So I told Kapp that if she stayed low, she’d be able to connect better. Sometimes instinct also tells you what the opponent is trying to do. So I was just trying to help her out there,” she added.

A product of the Mumbai nursery of cricket, Jemimah has faced many tough

SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR