Jemimah Rodrigues

Is it even legal to play Under-19 cricket at 13 years of age? And then play multiple sports and be good at all of them? Jemimah Rodrigues has done all that and more.

Rodrigues played basketball and football at school before making her Mumbai Under-19 cricket debut in the 2012-13 season. She was also a national level hockey player before choosing cricket full time. In 2017, she became only the second India woman after Smriti Mandhana to score a double-century in the domestic Under-19 one-day trophy when she struck an unbeaten 202 against Saurashtra.

It was a breakout season for Rodrigues, who scored over 1000 runs at an average of 112.56 (apart from taking 19 wickets with her offspin) in U-19 cricket, and also performed well in the Challenger Trophy and India A series. All of that culminated in a maiden call-up to India's ODI squad for the tour of South Africa in early 2018. Later that year, she also scored a half-century on her T20 World Cup debut.

Rodrigues' white-ball debut across formats in early 2018 vindicated the family's decision to shift base from Bhandup, a central suburb in Mumbai, to Bandra in the western suburb for access to better sporting facilities. She was coached by her father, Ivan, and soon became a regular in India's T20I set-up.

A natural at the top of the batting order - she played as an opener throughout age-group cricket - Rodrigues found success in ODI cricket in the middle order. When Amol Muzumdar was appointed head coach in 2023, he made her bat at No. 5 in most ODIs where she started faster, owing to spread-out fields, and became the team's preferred finisher. Her first two ODI centuries also came at Nos. 4 and 5, pointing towards a method that worked for her. After being left out of the T20I side, she worked hard on her power-hitting skills and the results showed.

She is also a natural athlete and one of India's best fielders, both in the inner ring and in the outfield.

Rodrigues also started her Test career with a half-century, at home against England, and showed how naturally the format came to her by scoring three fifties in five Test innings.

She also has been in demand in the T20 leagues, playing in the now-defunct Kia Super League, the women's Hundred, the WBBL as well as the WCPL. In fact, it was her stellar show for Northern Superchargers in the inaugural season of the Hundred - she was the second-highest scorer with 249 runs in seven innings with a strike rate of 150.90 - that paved the way for her return to India's T20I side.

In the inaugural WPL auction, Delhi Capitals picked her for INR 2.2 crore.