From childhood hustle to big-match pressure and the pure thrill of winning, Jemimah Rodrigues and Shafali Verma shared stories that were equal parts fun, emotional and inspiring
Jemimah Rodrigues and Shafali Verma
Kajol and Twinkle welcomed World Cup champions Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues for a special episode of Two Much with Kajol and Twinkle that hits straight out of the park. From childhood hustle to big-match pressure and the pure thrill of winning, they shared stories that were equal parts fun, emotional and inspiring. It’s a vibrant celebration of passion, grit and the unstoppable rise of women’s cricket in India!
Fresh off the victory, Jemimah summed up the feeling of winning the World Cup after 52 years, “It’s a dream, not just for us, but I think every single Indian out there. And we’re so happy we could do it and we’d also spoken about this that this World Cup is not just for us, but it is also for the generation before us who set the foundation so that we could play cricket today. So I think this is everyone’s cup.” Recounting the final wicket, she continued, “Vo jab last wicket gaya, (when we took the last wicket) and we all won, I think we all ran towards Harry Di, who took the last catch. But none of us could believe what happened. It didn’t sink in. It’s like abhi bhi sapna dekh rahe hai ki ye actually ho raha hai. (Are we dreaming or is this actually happening) Because we’ve dreamed about this our entire lives.”
Major twist in Jemimah Rodrigues's career
Jemimah revealed the twist that almost led her to hockey instead of cricket, “I played cricket before I played hockey. We had moved from Bhandup to Bandra because there was a lot of travelling. And that was also a very big move, because Bandra, it’s very expensive to stay there, and we came from a middle class family. So, when I came there, one of my uncles gave me a hockey stick and said ‘Go play, my daughter also plays.’ I played and I started doing well in hockey too. And the funny story here is, I got selected to play hockey for the state before cricket for the state. So my friends were like okay, Jemi is going to play hockey for India, that’s what they thought.” Eventually faced with a choice, she revealed why she chose cricket, “At that level, I had reached a higher level in cricket than hockey, so then we went ahead with cricket. But my dream is still to play both for India.”
Jemimah Rodrigues recalls her initial days in cricket
Looking back on her early days playing cricket, Jemimah said, “Initially when I started playing at a club, at that time, girls cricket wasn’t known. So there were no specific nets for girls. So my dad put me in an academy where there were all boys. I think there were 400 boys and I was the only girl there. I remember, we used to have this warm-up where you put your hand on each other's shoulder and you swing your legs to get the mobility going. But no boy would come to me. And then even if there was a guy who would come talk to me, later his friends would tease him with me. So nobody would really come and talk. Mentioning how she was never intimidated by the boys, she added, “When you have a bat in hand, or a ball in hand, you just end up having so much more confidence being yourself. It actually helped us up our game. Because just imagine, ek ladki ek ladka ko boundary ya six, if they are hitting, it hurts the guy’s ego. So next ball they are going to come hard. But they prepared us to be tough growing up I think.”
Jemimah revealed why she’s earned the title of Team DJ and narrated, “Personally, I love slow feel good Bollywood music. When we started playing for the state, I used to only listen to English songs. But she was the one who started playing a lot of Bollywood songs. The team also bonds a lot more to Bollywood music. So now I listen to more Bollywood music. But yeah, it depends. If the DJ thing is like when we are dancing, then it’s Punjabi.”
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
