17 Year Old Jemimah Rodrigues Elated After Maiden India Call Up

One of Indian women’s cricket team’s young prodigy’s Jemimah Rodriguez is delighted to make it to the top level as she has been selected in the 16 member squad to travel to South Africa. All of 17, Jemimah was elated when she got the news of her selection on the Indian national side. Jemimah who hails from Mumbai got a call-up on the back of some exceptional performances in the Under-19 tournament playing for Mumbai.

She had a stellar record in the recently concluded Senior Challengers Trophy. However, just like her parents she too is very religious and takes out time to church despite her hard training timings. Talking about her hard times she said:

“I had no performances to show. I was trying everything, but nothing was working for me. I was very low with confidence. At one point, I stopped believing in myself. That’s when my parents (dad Ivan and mum Lavita) encouraged me to read some scriptures from the Bible.” 

She believes her belief in God and being religious has helped her gain the self-confidence as she narrated a verse from Bible and then related it to her personal experiences:

“For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future.” She added, “I started to relate this to the tough phase I was going through. I was completely lost and didn’t know what my future would be. When I read this, I started to feel better. I thought that when God has not given up on me, why should I? It started thinking positively. I then played the Zonal Cricket Academy matches, where I scored a half-century in my third match itself. It was a new beginning for me.”  

Rodriguez became the first women cricketer to score over 1000 runs in Under-19 cricket in the 2017/18 season as she finished with 1013 in just 11 innings which eventually opened the gates for her in the Indian team:

“I became the first batswoman to notch-up 1000-plus runs in U19 cricket. I knew I had to be consistent at the senior level if I have to play for India. Playing against top players was a huge learning curve for me. I was aiming for this selection and I’m very happy to have achieved it.”