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Indian batter Jemimah Rodrigues recalled watching Indian men's team's triumph at the ICC T20 World Cup this year in Barbados this year, saying that her team felt the "desire and passion" to replicate the same and end their ICC trophy drought after witnessing the memorable moment.
The women's team will be in action during the ICC Women's T20 World Cup, which started on Thursday. They will be kickstarting their tournament against New Zealand on Friday. Indian women's team has never managed to win a 50-over or 20-over World Cup. Coming to the T20 WC, their best finish was the runners-up finish to Australia in 2020. In the previous edition of the tournament held last year, India finished in semifinals, losing to Australia by five runs. This time, they will surely have some inspiration to take from Rohit Sharma's men, who ended the country's 11-year title drought by defeating South Africa in the finals at Barbados this year in June. In 100 T20Is for India, Rodrigues has scored 2,074 runs at an average of 30.50, with a strike rate of 114.26. She has 11 fifties in 87 innings, with the best score of 76. Speaking on Star Sports, Jemimah recalled that the team caught with a match during their Test match against South Africa till late night. She also said that while a lot of players in the team are a "talkative bunch", they were silent when India won the trophy. "I remember watching the men's final. We had a Test match against South Africa, and on Day 3, we stayed up until 12 or 1:30 in the night watching the match. I remember that moment clearly. We've always dreamt of winning the World Cup, but seeing them win just before our World Cup made it feel so much more real. That desire and passion to win was ignited when we saw Rohit Sharma and the team lifting the trophy. A few of us were in the room, and we are usually a talkative bunch, especially me, but when that happened, we all fell silent." Jemimah said that everyone present in the room wondered when their time will come and when they will experience lifting the trophy with their skipper Harmanpreet Kaur. "I do not want to think too much about the result, honestly. The dream is there, but we are focusing more on the process and what we need to do. We will let God take care of the result," she concluded. In the lead-up to the T20 World Cup, India has had mixed results. They lost the T20I series against Australia and England earlier this year, but Harmanpreet's side bounced back with two consecutive series wins against Bangladesh. In July, India's T20I series against South Africa ended in a draw. In the Asia Cup 2024, India lost the final to Sri Lanka, who remained unbeaten throughout the tournament. In the T20 World Cup last year, Australia defeated South Africa at home by 19 runs to win their sixth title. Meanwhile, India made it to the semifinals, losing to the Aussies by five runs. Squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh (WK), Yastika Bhatia (WK), Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh, Dayalan Hemalatha, Asha Sobhana, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil, Sajana Sajeevan. Travelling reserves: Uma Chetry (wk), Tanuja Kanwer, Saima Thakor. Non-Travelling Reserves: Raghvi Bist, Priya Mishra. (ANI)
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