Jemimah Rodrigues has been a constant in India’s white-ball setup since her debut in 2018. But it took her almost seven years to bring up her maiden international century.
During the second ODI against Ireland in Rajkot, the Mumbai batter scored 102 runs off 91 balls, guiding India to their highest-ever total of 370 for five. She showed a lot of composure during her knock while shifting gears at the right time.
“Feels great, it was a long-awaited one, and glad I could do it for the team today. I just tried to keep small targets and just kept achieving it,” Rodrigues said.
“And I like the way that I shifted gears today. Initially I showed a lot of patience, which was again a big positive for me because it was important for me to spend time there to get those runs. And you know, I was getting the runs. But I was not spending enough time to make it bigger. So I was happy I could do that today,” she further added.
Moving Up and Down the Order Didn’t Help
With a lot of immense talent, Rodrigues couldn’t showcase her true potential in what is a topsy-turvy career. The reason being the management pushing her up and down the order, which didn’t help her solidify a spot in the squad.
Before coming into the second ODI, the right-hand batter managed nine runs, batting at No. 4. It was only the second time in her 40 innings, she batted at No. 4 with regular captain Harmanpreet Kaur being rested for the series.
Rodrigues Takes Inspiration from Under-19 Days
Rodrigues got another go at the same spot, and this time she replied with a solid maiden ODI ton. Reflecting on her first international hundred, she shed light on how she remained optimistic and took inspiration from her under-19 days after scoring nine runs in the first game.
“I was very angry at myself but at the same time I needed to be positive towards myself because that works for me, you know, if I keep being too harsh on myself I go very low but it was important for me to keep being positive rather than thinking, ‘okay, I got out but next match what I could do better’, what I needed to do so I tried to get back to, I have scored hundreds in U-19, scored 200 as well, so I tried to get back to what I used to do then and today I tried to apply it and it came off well.”
Rodrigues joined Harleen Deol in the middle after India were 156 for two in the first innings. She played a patient knock before changing the gears in the death overs.
She got to her fifty in 62 deliveries and then started finding boundaries at regular intervals. Meanwhile, Rodigues stitched a composed 183-run partnership with Harleen Deol for the third wicket, taking India to 370 for five.
This was largely possible due to a brisk start provided by skipper Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal, who built a 156-run opening stand.
“Yeah, of course, if your openers give you that kind of a start, you know, it is always much more easier for us to handle the middle overs and take it well but yeah, two back-to-back wickets so Harleen and I had to just give ourselves some time because I think Ireland bowlers were also on top at that time. So, I think one thing about 50 over matches, you know, we can take a little bit of time and that is what we did, we calculated it well, we said till the 40th over we will just play risk-free cricket and we know we can always make up for it.”
As Rodrigues reached her first triple-digit figures in the last over, she celebrated it by making her bat as a guitar and imitating playing a song on it.
