Jemimah Rodrigues was among the many most sought-after gamers on the just lately concluded Girls’s Premier League (WPL) auctions. After frantic bidding, Delhi Capitals received his house for a whopping Rs 2.2 crore – the fifth most costly participant of the inaugural league.
However like most girls cricketers within the nation, it has been an uphill climb for the extraordinarily versatile and proficient Mumbai teenager. “It wasn’t the simplest journey however that received the very best out of me,” is how the 22-year-old summed up her progress in an episode of ‘Know Your Stars’ accessible on JioCinema.
“Day-after-day, my dad used to chuck 300 balls after I batted. I received to know this later, however my mother instructed me that he used to return again and his hand can be fully sore, he could not raise it. My mother would therapeutic massage it each evening. However he by no means instructed me, he simply wished me to get higher and higher,” mentioned Jemimah about her dad, Ivan Rodrigues’, sacrifices.
Actually, it was solely by pure likelihood that Rodrigues (Senior) noticed the expertise his daughter possessed. He despatched her as an alternative choice to one in all her brothers in an U-16 match on the behest of the college coach. “Jemimah went into bat. I assumed she would get out rapidly,” he recalled. “I got here after one-and-a-half or two hours and she or he was nonetheless taking part in,” he mentioned with a proud smile. “These huge boys, it was an U-16 match. They had been providing her candies for a catch. However nothing doing as she stored batting!”
Ivan additionally revealed she signed her first autograph that day. “One gentleman noticed her batting after which later got here and took her autograph saying it could be troublesome to get her signature when she grew to become a giant participant. He nonetheless calls me when he sees her batting,” he mentioned.
Jemimah recalled these early days, saying: “We used to play at house with a plastic ball. My dad used to bowl under-arm and these balls swing rather a lot. I used to do my batting drills with them. That is the place I realized my cowl drive, at house. We had a really small home at the moment, 5 of us had been staying over there.”
The younger batter’s perseverance is paying off magnificently and she or he has already scored 1,704 runs for India in 80 T20Is. Jemimah is now seeking to high the run charts within the WPL that begins on March 4.
![If Women's IPL gets even half the attention as Men’s IPL, it will change the face of the game: Yastika Bhatia [Interview]](/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1667702991465_Untitled-1-150x150.png "If Women's IPL gets even half the attention as Men’s IPL, it will change the face of the game: Yastika Bhatia [Interview]")
