“India! India! India!” Ian Bishop, in his trademark baritone, exclaimed as members of the Indian cricket team melted into a pile on the pitch. Under it all was a weeping Jemimah Rodrigues.

The weight of an increasing mound on her was nothing compared to what she had been carrying in her heart for the better part of three years.

When Amanjot Kaur cut Sophie Molineux to backward point for four to seal the game, a dam broke for Jemimah as she dropped to her knees.

A little more than 1,700 km away from Navi Mumbai, former India fielding coach Biju George was glued to his television in Thiruvananthapuram.

“My father-in-law had to take a pill to fall asleep finally,” he gushed in a chat with  Sportstar the morning after India’s historic chase of 339 in the semifinal at the D.Y.

George, who was part of the support staff for India’s historic 2017 World Cup campaign, had seen a similar story unfold before. On October 26, George – as he often does on social media – boldly declared, “Mark my words… Australia will lose only one match in the women’s World Cup … to India in the semifinals!! India will win this tournament!! (sic)”

India pulled off a famous encore, tearing down the mighty Australians yet again, with a batting display packed with fearlessness – a marked departure from its usual crumbles in crunch situations – and at the helm of it was George’s ‘little Jemi.’

India pulled off a famous encore, tearing down the mighty Australians yet again, and at the helm of it was George’s ‘little Jemi.’
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Special Arrangement

Dynamite

His first memories of meeting the talkative, ever-energetic batter are from 2018 at a fitness and fielding camp held at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.

“Someone from the Mumbai Cricket Association once told me, ‘You watch till our Jemi comes.’ I got to see her first in 2018 when she walked out to bat at the NCA in the Chinnaswamy Stadium premises, and she walked right into my heart where she will stay forever.”

His first memories of meeting Jemimah are from 2018 at a fitness and fielding camp held at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru.
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Special Arrangement

“We had an hour-long fielding session at 6:30 in the evening, and at the end of it, she was ready for one more. At the other end of the spectrum was Thirushkamini, who I remember turned back and looked at her, saying, ‘Are you mad or what?’ She was done with her drills, but Jemi wanted more.”

George remembers her curious mind and constant urge to keep tinkering with different possibilities in technique and application.

“Hats off to her coach, Prashant (Shetty). The way he and her father, Ivan, worked with her in every aspect of the game, giving her freedom, trusting her, and always backing her, had paid off. It’s easy for people, when success comes calling, to want to jump on bandwagons, but Jemi has persisted with her childhood coach, who knows her best,” he added.

Shetty, in the stands with her parents, watched as Jemimah bowed down in gratitude.

Shetty, in the stands with her parents, watched as Jemimah bowed down in gratitude.
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Special Arrangement

She spoke candidly about a tough year – crying almost every day during the tournament, struggling mentally, and dealing with anxiety. Two early ducks and being dropped for the England match further dented her morale.

Step by step

The seasoned coach set and reinforced ‘small targets’ to bring back Jemimah’s confidence in his daily conversations on the phone.

“We discussed how our game plan should be for the first 10 deliveries. We agreed that it is important to hang in there and not be tempted to play big shots from the word go. Controlling the start was key,” Shetty told  Sportstar.

“We decided that she has to be compact in her approach in the first eight to ten balls, and once things settled down, she could switch to her natural game. We laid that out for the game against New Zealand, and it paid off,” he said, referring to her unbeaten 55-ball 76.

Former India coach W.V. Raman, who was watching the semifinal from Chennai, remembers thinking, “Jem, don’t do anything now” when she began to take more risks. Moments later, she was handed a reprieve by Tahlia McGrath.

“What I liked about this innings was the fact that she was battling with herself to try and calm down. She was getting a bit restless in between, and she does have the tendency to get a bit carried away sometimes when trying to step on the pedal,” Raman told  Sportstar.

“It was the same thing I said to her on a bus journey in New Zealand many years ago. She needed to stop trying to think that the entire side was resting on her shoulders.”

Frequent changes in batting position made things harder earlier, but India’s current depth – with Richa Ghosh, Amanjot Kaur and Sneh Rana – has eased that pressure.

Under former coach W.V. Raman, she featured at 3 and sometimes at 5, due to a dearth of options in the batting lineup.
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RITU RAJ KONWAR

“Jemi taking such pressure at 25, after having played leagues around the world and gaining experience, is not the same as doing the same at 20. Wanting to be responsible isn’t a bad thing, but it’s about whether the player has the tools, the wherewithal, the wisdom to handle it. That can only be patiently earned through experience. Can’t be bought,” Raman elaborated.

“We both knew that we couldn’t leave it to destiny,” Shetty further explains. “There was no scope for emotions. The plan was to cut out the noise. I told her that, irrespective of what she scored, she could not show her disappointment or otherwise on the field. That clarity was key.”

That focus on the job at hand was evident as Jemimah brought up her maiden ODI World Cup hundred in the semifinal against Australia. No celebration, barely even a smile. The actual job – carrying the side into the final – was far from over.
Meanwhile, George was unfazed.

“Everything comes down to a player’s reading of the game, to gauge the momentum shifts. Great players and teams are those who ride that momentum and, if needed, turn it in their favour for a long time during the game. Jemi is adept at doing that.

“In a way, fielding first helped her. She took those catches, made those stops, dove everywhere. It would have put her in a very positive frame of mind before going to bat. Hope the same happens against South Africa,” he quipped.

George also got to work with her during the Women’s Premier League as the fielding coach of the Delhi Capitals for a few seasons. The two-time runner-up, incidentally, was packed with players desperately seeking opportunities to prove a point. Marizanne Kapp, Jess Jonassen, Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav, and Jemimah (who was then carrying the wounds of being dropped from the 2022 World Cup squad) – all had found themselves on the wrong side of either history or selections and had hungrily sought redemption.

George also got to work with her during the Women’s Premier League as the fielding coach of the Delhi Capitals for a few seasons.
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Special Arrangement

“That was a deliberate choice. When we went looking for players, we chose players who were hurt, who wanted a second chance, who were ready to grab opportunities with both hands. All we told them was to express themselves. If you fail, it’s fine. Failure isn’t an identity. It’s an incident,” George recalled.

Looking within

Not finding a place in the squad for the 2022 World Cup broke something in an endlessly cheerful girl.

“At the time, I thought Jemimah was missing out on the forest by focusing on the trees,” Raman says.

“The need to improve her strike rate consumed her. There was plenty of talk about her not scoring quickly and her visibility on social media. People harped on it endlessly for reasons best known to them. It was ridiculous as it had nothing to do with what she or anyone was doing on the field.”

The changes needed were mental, not technical.

“The chatter outside didn’t matter. At the end of the day, people are result-oriented. If players do well, get a hundred and party till the next evening, no one will say anything. But if you’re tucked up in bed by 9 pm and don’t score, people will talk, right? All I told her was to look inward with anything she did.”

He remembers a Women’s Big Bash League season where Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah were together Down Under.

“Smriti told me that Jemi barely spoke that year when they met. She told me how shocked she was that a girl who wouldn’t shut up was now putting a price on her words. She internalised a lot of things. I am glad she had Smriti there then,” he adds.

India’s Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues during an ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2025 practice session.
| Photo Credit:
EMMANUAL YOGINI

Speaking to Raman on a podcast for  Sportstar in 2022, Jemi had revealed an emotional chat with her family after losing out on the World Cup.

“I remember my mom and dad, we sat down at home, all three of us were trying to be happy for each other, just so that we could be strong for each other. Then I broke down, and I told my dad that I think I need to take a break from cricket for a few days. My dad started crying; my dad never cries. He’s like, for me to go through something is fine, but when I see my own daughter going through something, it’s 10,000 times worse,” she had said then.

The years since have brought many more troubles to the Rodrigues, the most intense being the vitriol that went their way after allegations levelled against her father of using the Khar Gymkhana for ‘religious conversions’, one that was quickly debunked.

On Thursday, the Rodrigues family wept again, but in joy, with their daughter answering naysayers in the best way she knew, with her bat.

On Thursday, the Rodrigues family wept again, but in joy, with their daughter answering naysayers in the best way she knew, with her bat.
| Photo Credit:
ICC via Getty Images

“Jemi is a giver. She is not one looking to gain from the team or from her friends. She would like to contribute and make a big difference to the team and also to her colleagues. She looks at life like that, and, incredibly, she has catapulted herself several notches higher with this performance. If she backs it up with another good knock in the final, that will seal her status as an icon,” Raman declared.

“Her knock has to be in the list of top 10 knocks ever played in ODIs as far as Indian cricket is concerned,” he added.

“She’s a gem. The only thing is that there’s just a substitution of a consonant.”

George reveals that Jemi was awake well into the morning after the game, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins. Come Sunday, he hopes that the 16-year-old Jemi he saw all those years ago, who just wanted to win games for her team, lives out her ultimate dream.

(With inputs from Shayan Acharya)

Published on Oct 31, 2025