Jemima Rodrigues understands her strengths well and doesn’t seem to need to alter her natural game to become a ‘power hitter’ like captain Harmanpreet Kaur or Smriti Mandhana. Jemima played a key role in India’s victory against Barbados. The 21-year-old scored an unbeaten 56 off 46 balls as India beat Barbados by 100 runs to reach the semi-finals of the Commonwealth Games cricket tournament.

Jemima said after the match, “Smriti (Mandhana) said during IPL (Women’s T20 Challenge) in 2019 that don’t try to be Harmanpreet Kaur or Smriti Mandhana, you are Jemima Rodrigues. I think I understood that role and it’s helping me a lot.” What people think of her game doesn’t really matter to Jemima.

The team has assigned me a role

“The team has assigned me a role. If I can play that role then it doesn’t matter what people think about it. If it benefits the team, then we have Shefali, Smriti and Harman and so I just want to play the role in the best way that I can for the team.”

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Jemima admitted that she is not a ‘power hitter’ but is focusing on this particular skill to contribute more in the shortest format of the game. “Obviously I am working on my power game but more importantly I have understood my game. I am not a power hitter but I can play shots well enough to take a run or two. I know how to score runs. And think this is my strong side.”

Jemima is confident that she can maintain her strike rate despite not hitting enough sixes

Jemima is confident that she can maintain her strike rate despite not hitting enough sixes. “My game is not very attractive but even without that I can maintain a good strike rate. So I realized that I don’t need to emulate anyone. I have to be Jemima Rodrigues to score runs. It helped me.”

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Jemima also spoke about her conversation with coach Ramesh Pawar who had asked the batsman to be ready to land at number three. “Ramesh sir asked me to be ready to bat at number three after the last match. To be honest, when I was preparing, I was ready for both my roles.

Jemima said, “But of course I like to bat at number three. I am glad that I got a chance to play at this number and I contributed as per my strategy. The team also benefited from this.”