India have done the unthinkable by toppling the seemingly invincible Australia in a record run chase in the semifinal of a World Cup. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)Nearly an hour had passed since the winning runs were scored to record India’s greatest ODI World Cup victory against Australia, regardless of gender. But Jemimah Rodrigues’s name still echoed inside the cavernous DY Patil Stadium as a few thousand fans stayed back, singing songs and chanting her name.
Minutes ago, Rodrigues was buried under her teammates, who rushed onto the field after she led India to a five-wicket win over Australia and formed a mountain over her. When the batter emerged from it, she was soaked in tears. “I’ve cried almost every day throughout this tour,” said Rodrigues. “I was not doing well mentally, going through a lot of anxiety, then being dropped was another challenge for me.”
On a night like this, who needs analysis? That can wait. In a fever-dream of an evening, the Indian women’s team took a sledgehammer to decades of history; rather, the glorious swing of Rodrigues’s bat. ”Today was not about my 50 or 100,” she said. “It was about making India win.”
For the 193 minutes that she was in the middle of a tense World Cup semi-final against Australia, the Mumbai batter — dropped from the playing 11 once in the tournament and shuffled in the batting order — did what Team India could not for the last month: make the supporters believe.
When she came in the second over, India were staring at a mountain of runs. They were chasing a total — 339 — no team had ever chased in the history of women’s one-day internationals. And there was little evidence to suggest that India would change the course of history tonight.
Not just because they lost Shafali Verma, the last-minute addition to the squad, and the inspirational Smriti Mandhana inside the first 10 overs. But also because India barely got going in this tournament.
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A World Cup at home can be both exhilarating and exhausting. As their caravan chugged from Guwahati to Colombo, Vizag to Indore, and finally to Navi Mumbai, the beating heart of women’s cricket in India, Harmanpreet & Co. had a chance to capture the country’s imagination.
But they never really went beyond second gear. Defeats to Australia, South Africa and England — the matches they should have won — left them on the brink. There weren’t many memorable individual performances, nor a solid, collective team effort, and, if not for rain in Colombo, the hosts would have been dumped out after the group stage itself.
There were question marks over the leadership, the roles of players and even the future of some. Rodrigues spoke about the uncertainty and the toll it took on her. “I was going through a lot of anxiety. I used to call my mum and cry, let it all out. When you are going through anxiety, you feel numb,” she said. “Almost everyday, I cried in front of Arundhati, she checked on me every second of the day. Smriti helped me, she also knew what I was going through. Then I was dropped from the team and it hit me. When you come back, it’s a lot more pressure. Sometimes, all you need to do is hang in there and things fall into place. I am thankful for people who believe in me.”
As players grappled with demons in their heads, India huffed and puffed their way into the semi-finals, but finishing fourth meant they ran into the immovable force that is Australia, the Mondo Duplantis of international cricket.
Australia are the best team in the world by some distance, not just because they have won the ODI World Cup seven times, or the T20 World Cup thrice since 2018, or the 2022 Commonwealth Games gold, or the fact that they have lost just five times in ODIs in the last decade.
They are formidable because of their depth, which triggers a fierce competition for a place in the 11, and clearly defined roles in the team, which is why they barely ever rely on any single player. If Healy went out early on Thursday, Phoebe Litchfield came up with a bossy hundred; once she departed, Ellyse Perry anchored the innings while Ash Gardner provided the late fireworks.
India weren’t the cheerleaders like most pole vaulters are when Mondo is in the house, but they were being the gracious hosts.
On a big day when they needed a perfect game, India were anything but that. There were misfields galore, they gifted runs in overthrows and could not hold on to half-chances.
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur first dropped her Australian counterpart Alyssa Healy. Three overs after Harmanpreet spilled Healy’s catch, Deepti Sharma conceded four overthrows; after a couple of overs, Amanjot Kaur dived over the ball as it raced along the fast outfield into the boundary line, and, one ball later, Richa Ghosh could not get enough of her gloves on a wild Kranti Gaud delivery, drifting down the leg, that gifted Australia five-wides.
India gave away at least 25 runs in freebies. And, at one point, it seemed like those would cost them dear, although Rodrigues said she felt Australia were at least 30 runs short.
Then, in the most un-Australian manner, Australia imploded. They dropped Rodrigues twice and allowed soft runs as India clawed their way back into the match.
The first time she showed any emotion was when she punched the air after hitting a boundary in the 48th over, which brought the equation to 10 runs from 14; less than a run-a-ball for the first time in the innings.
And when Amanjot hit the winning runs, Rodrigues went down on her knees and was overcome with emotions. As her name rang around the stands, it felt like India’s World Cup finally kick-started. With Rodrigues at the wheel, everyone’s aboard. In a Mumbai minute, India women’s cricket had turned on its head. For forever and a day.
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