ICC Women’s World Cup Final: Jhulan becomes India’s jewel at Lords

India’s Jhulan Goswami picked up 3/23 in the final at Lords. (Source: Reuters)

Keeping it straight and simple and helping the team in key situations is what India’s pace spearhead Jhulan Goswami does best. On Sunday, at the World Cup final at Lords, the Chakdahah Express once more produced an outstanding spell of pace bowling as she picked up three wickets to put England on the backfoot. Bringing in all the experience into play she snapped the wickets of Sarah Taylor, Natalie Sciver and Fran Wilson and it was her spell which pushed England from 145/3 to 164/6 in a matter of few overs. She ultimately finished her spell with figures of three wickets for just 23 runs from 10 overs. Incidentally, this is the fourth best bowling figures in a World Cup final.

Very often such an effort goes unnoticed but at Lords, each and everyone was applauding her effort as she finished her quota of overs.  While in the league stage her performances weren’t eye catching – five wickets from seven matches, in the knockouts she picked up five from 2 matches. Her graph has gone upwards since the beginning of the tournament and in the all important final, she rose to the occasion.

With nearly 15 years of international cricket under her belt, Goswami is one of the two survivors from the 2005 World Cup final side. She recently became the leading wicket-taker in women’s ODIs now has a total 192 wickets. However, Jhulan had recently stated that she never played for records but for the love of the sport. Team India will hope her swan song ends on a good note.