Innovative Jemimah Rodrigues makes it count with boundary-laden half-century

Jemimah Rodrigues is not a big six hitter. She is not burly, and she doesn't demolish the ball into the stands. You lob her a full toss, and chances are she will deftly place it into the gap for four. If power-hitting doesn't come naturally to her, how did she smoke three sixes and several one-bounce fours during a match-winning 69 off 33 balls against a Mumbai Indians line-up packed with international bowlers?

The pitch which Delhi Capitals and Mumbai were playing on at the Arun Jaitley Stadium was fresh and largely helping the batters when they went for their shots. The big difference compared to the Bengaluru tracks, where the first half of this WPL was played, was the lack of bounce which turned out to be a blessing for Rodrigues, who is not tall like some of her team-mates, as she could get under the ball more easily.

The ground also had skewed square boundaries - 46 metres on one and 63 on the other. Her technique, though comprehensive and compact, was going to need some form of innovation to find the ropes regularly.

Soon after Meg Lanning's 53 from 38 deliveries chaperoned the team to 114 for 3 in 13 overs, the onus was on Rodrigues to probably hold one end and leave the job of hitting those big sixes to Marizanne Kapp and Jess Jonassen. After all, Rodrigues' T20 strike rate was only 118; and at one stage, she was on a boundary-less 13 off 14 balls, and Capitals on 123 for 3 with five overs to go.

When Shabnim Ismail bowled a slow cutter at just 88.9kph, Rodrigues went down on a knee and slog-swept to the wide long-on boundary - the longer boundary in that over - for a one-bounce four. Trying to stay one step ahead of the experienced Ismail, Rodrigues made room two balls later for the quicker ball on middle, and carved it over the two point fielders for another one-bounce four.

"I knew coming into the WPL you need all sorts of shots, and I can't stick to [certain shots] and say, 'I'm this kind of a player'," Rodrigues said after the game.

With the shorter boundary on her leg side next over, Rodrigues went out of her crease on the off side to make Pooja Vastrakar's short ball race away to the square-leg boundary. The keeper soon came up, and when Vastrakar went wide outside off, Rodrigues scythed it to the deep-third boundary for another one-bounce four.

The manipulation of the field continued in the 18th over when Rodrigues first swept a four behind square off Saika Ishaque, and then manufactured room to slash another one-bounce four to the backward-point boundary.

She saved the best for the last two overs. After starting the 19th with a four and a six, she shuffled a long way to the off side, and when Nat Sciver-Brunt pitched it short, Rodrigues smashed it for six to the short leg-side boundary and left the opposition captain in a double tea-pot stance. Rodrigues was not only maneuvering the ball in the gaps, but she was also hitting them for sixes en route to a 27-ball fifty.

"For me I need to put a little more effort than the others to hit those sixes," she said. "But I rely a lot on my timing and my bat swing. I think today it came off really well, and for me, even if you see my sixes, I don't try to hit sixes, I try to hit the ball in the gap. If it's hit too well, it goes for a six.

"That's something I've learnt from Virat Kohli; he does that really well. I really look up to him because we have similar [batting] positions in the Indian team. The way he goes about [his game], he runs well between the wickets, [and] he has intent while batting. Even if he hits sixes, he hits it in the gaps. So if he hits it well, it's either two runs, four or a six. That's what I try and imply in my game too."

And Rodrigues was doing that so well against Mumbai on Tuesday that they were caught off guard. When Hayley Matthews came around the wicket for the last over with protection on the leg-side boundary, Rodrigues made the ball sail high over the longest part of the ground - wide long-on - for her third six before finding another boundary to finish unbeaten on 69.

"I never imagined that it would be a 33-ball 69*," she said. "One thing really good about my game today was [that] from the first ball I had the intent. Even though I didn't go bang, bang, bang from the first ball, but in my stride the way I was timing the ball, I think that intent was very important for me. It gets me going and gets my feet in good positions."

The last time she had hit three sixes in a T20 was in two domestic games in the 2021-22 season, but on the big stage and televised matches, it last happened in a T20I against Sri Lanka in 2018. On Tuesday, it was just the fourth occasion in her T20 career of 201 innings that she had struck three sixes in an innings.

"I need to keep improving with the game," she said. "Working on power-hitting was not just now or just before the WPL; it's been a long process from so many years, and going out there and hitting those sixes time and time again [was great]."

Rodrigues knew she was never a big six-hitter, and trying to become someone she wasn't was not going to take her anywhere. When her close friend Smriti Mandhana sent her a message after the previous game to say, "you just be a Jemimah Rodrigues, and you'll be fine", is when it hit home for Rodrigues, and she made it count in her first home game.