When a 12-year-old Jemimah Rodrigues walked into the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune years ago, cricket wasn’t her only goal. Her father, Ivan Rodrigues, had simply taken her there to watch the Maharashtra under-19 hockey trials. It was meant to be a lesson in how sports selections worked, not a career move.
But then someone passed her the ball.
“When someone passed me the ball, I reverse-scooped it at the right-hand side corner,” Jemimah recalled in a social media post. “The people sitting outside, along with the guest of honour, were amazed. And he’s like, ‘Who’s that girl? That girl has to be there.’ That’s how I got my first Maharashtra selection.”
That spontaneous stroke of flair marked the start of Jemimah’s journey in competitive sport. She went on to represent Maharashtra at the under-17 level in field hockey, while also playing basketball and football at school. Olympian Joaquim Carvalho, who watched her play at the U-17 Nationals, famously told her father, “If she sticks with hockey, she can play for India.”
Her time on the hockey turf did more than sharpen her athletic instincts — it shaped the all-round athlete she would become. “Playing multiple sports has helped me a lot,” Jemimah told Cricinfo in an interview. “Hockey involves a lot of running, a lot of wrist work, which helps in my cricket game. But also, mentally, you are accustomed to different situations… the pressure is the same as you face in a cricket game.”
Those lessons in movement, timing, and resilience translated seamlessly when she picked up the cricket bat. Hockey had trained her eyes to track motion and her body to react in a heartbeat. It gave her the balance, agility, and fitness that would later make her one of India’s sharpest fielders and quickest runners between the wickets.
By 12, Jemimah was already representing Maharashtra’s under-19 cricket team. Five years later, she announced herself to the domestic circuit with a blistering 202 off 163 balls against Saurashtra — becoming only the second Indian woman after Smriti Mandhana to score a double century in one-day cricket.
Even as she rose through the cricketing ranks, Jemimah never forgot the simple joy of sport. In 2022, she turned out for Uncle’s Kitchen United at the Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana Rink Tournament in Mumbai, scoring a hat-trick in her first outing. “I remembered what it felt like to just play again,” she said later.
That pure, joyful approach was on full display in the 2025 Women’s World Cup semi-final against Australia, when Jemimah produced the innings of her life — an unbeaten 127 that guided India past Australia’s towering 339-run total. Calm under pressure, quick between the wickets, and sharp in her shot selection, she embodied every lesson sport had taught her since those early days on the hockey turf.
After the match, former India hockey player Viren Rasquinha was among the many who connected her cricketing heroics to her hockey background. “Seven years ago, I had lunch with an upcoming 18-year-old cricketer who also played a lot of good hockey in her junior days,” he wrote on X. “That’s why she fields, runs and dives so well. She was brave, bold and bindaas. Tonight, she showed all that and more. Made a nation proud, Jemimah.”
From the hum of a hockey stick on turf to the roar of a packed stadium, Jemimah Rodrigues’ journey is a reminder that true athletes are shaped not just by one sport, but by the spirit of play itself.
