Girls, Uninterrupted

The ODI World Cup victory is a watershed moment that has mainstreamed women's cricket, shedding its identity as a tag-on to the men's game

- By KATHAKALI CHANDA

Growing up in Mumbai, Jemimah Rodrigues never knew women's cricket existed as an independent category.

She used to knock around with her brothers and take throwdowns from her father till the latter decided she needed to be put through a structured practice routine. Along with her brothers, Rodrigues was sent to an academy, but was turned away. “It was because, first, I was a girl and, second, I was tiny. That hurt me a lot because, till then, I didn't know you had to be a boy to play cricket,” Rodrigues told Forbes India in an earlier interview.

Rodrigues, now 25, still cuts a petite frame, but has a stature that towers over it. On October 30, at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, the No 3 batter overcame a loss of form to play an out-of-body innings, steering a record chase against Australia to take India into the final of the ODI World Cup.

"Brands are no longer treating women's cricket as a packaged deal with men's. Over 55 percent came exclusively for the Women's World Cup this year."

ISHAN CHATTERJEE CEO-SPORTS, JIOSTAR

The rest, as they say, is history. Three days later, India exorcised its demons of two near-misses—in the ODI World Cups of 2005 and 2017—and beat South Africa to lift its first-ever ICC trophy. And with it, Rodrigues and her colleagues settled a generational debate that they have been trolled with every time they felt short—that a woman's rightful place isn't in the kitchen, but wherever she desires, be it at the cricket academy, or, more fittingly, on the victory podium.