Jemimah Rodrigues attributes her father and Sachin Tendulkar for success in domestic circuit

Mumbai, Jan 14: Jamimah Rodrigues became country’s youngest female cricketer to have scored a double century in one-day first-class cricket.

Her prolific show in the domestic circuit this season has guided her to ensure a place in the Indian women’s team for the forthcoming South Africa series in South Africa.

Speaking over phone from Mumbai recently, the 17-year-old batswoman from Mumbai seemed elated to have struck a place in the Indian team.

She became emotional and said, “My parents were crying in joy. They had a huge struggle and sacrifice behind my transition as a cricketer.”

Jemimah used to play several games in her early days. She was passionate on sports as a whole.

She added, “I used to play hockey, basketball, football along with cricket in my school and early days even during my college.”

Then her father Ivan Rodrigues asked her to choose one I used to take part. So I chose cricket and hockey."

Jemimah did not forget to reveal her wish of representing Indian team in even hockey in the future!

Four years ago in 2018, she was called up in the under-19 national preparatory camp. Still, she did not seem to be happy as Jemimah was not successful in scoring big runs in the domestic tournaments.

She explained, “My father was the man behind me during my frustration that time. He read Bible and tried to give me mental strength every day after I return from training. Apart from feeding mental strength, my father also made some small corrections in my technique like back-lift while hitting the ball, gripping properly. He also taught me a very important method to perfect the hand-eye coordination as well as my bat-speed. I would not have been able to score the double hundred if my father had not spent those priceless contributions.”

Jemimah, whose favourite batsman is Rohit Sharma, has another cherishing memory and she mentions it as highly inspirational.

Last year when Sachin Tendulkar met her at Mumbai Cricket Academy (MCA) she said, “Sachin sir met all of us in the academy. I asked him how I should play big innings. Sachin sir’s reply was, build up the innings just like a construction builder constructs a building from the foundation stage. I was overwhelmed and always try to follow his advice.”