Jemimah Rodrigues is the next offering from the Mumbai School of Batting sensations. She started playing against a season ball at the age of 4 and showed signs of her talent. Her father, Ivan Rodrigues, who is a cricket coach decided to take her coaching a lot more seriously and has played a key role in her development.
Apart from cricket, she also indulged herself in Hockey and has also represented her state team of Maharashtra at the junior level. She was picked for the Mumbai U19 cricket team at the age of 13. In 2017, she scored a double century in a U19 50-overs match against Saurashtra. Her knock of 202*, was only the second instance of an Indian woman scoring a double hundred, after Smriti Mandhana.
In 2018, she was named the Best Domestic Junior Women's Cricketer by the BCCI. She later made her debut for India that year in a T20I match against South Africa. At the 2018 T20 World Cup, she was named the stand-out player by the ICC. She continued her good run of form and was part of India’s T20 World Cup squad in 2020, which ended up as the runners-up of the tournament.
She was played in the Hundred for Northern Superchargers, for whom she enjoyed a good run of scores. Jemimah has also represented the two Melbourne franchises, Stars and Renegades, in the Women’s Big Bash League.
In 2022, she played a crucial role in India finishing with the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. A few months later, she was part of the Asia Cup-winning squad. At the 2023 T20 World Cup, she played a couple of vital knocks for India, helping them reach the semi-finals. She joined Delhi Capitals as the highest-paid player, having got an Auction price of INR 2.2 crores for the inagural season of the Women's Premier League.
Over the last two years, Jemimah has become one of the mainstays of the Indian team but she has also been in and out of the national side a few times. She will be a part of the Indian team for the upcoming ODI World Cup at home and will be expected to play a big part as an important cog in the middle order and as one of the top fielders in the world.Â
