India batter Jemimah Rodrigues has opened up on facing anxiety throughout the ODI World Cup campaign. Speaking to Cricbuzz, Jemimah delved deep into the problems she faced and how she finally came out of it.
India’s ODI World Cup campaign brought with it intense pressure, but for Jemimah, it also ignited a deeply personal battle. The India batter revealed that she spent almost the entire tournament fighting anxiety — a struggle that hit her from the very first match.
She said she couldn’t understand why it was happening or how to control it. “I was dealing with a lot of anxiety, right from the first match,” Jemimah admitted. “For some reason, I was not able to get rid of it sometimes you can’t psych it out.” Even though she knew the feelings “made no sense,” she simply couldn’t shake them off.
As the tournament progressed, the anxiety began affecting parts of the game she has always drawn joy from. Fielding, usually her escape, suddenly felt suffocating. She recalled how the pressure of not scoring runs spilled over into everything else: “I started getting anxiety even in my fielding thinking, ‘Now that I’ve not scored, I need to do something special.’ I was not able to enjoy my fielding.”
What made the phase even tougher was the constant emotional breakdowns she experienced behind the scenes. Jemimah confessed that she struggled to be herself on the field and felt numb during games — sensations she found difficult to articulate. “Someone who’s going through it only will understand,” she said. “At that time, you just feel numb you can’t do anything.”
Opening Up With Friends and Mother
But slowly, the turning point arrived when she chose not to deal with it alone. Her decision to open up to her closest friends allowed her to breathe again. “It was hard, but it was a good thing that I didn’t shy away from talking about it,” she said, adding that letting things out instead of faking normalcy helped her process the emotions.
One of her strongest pillars of support was Arundhati Reddy, who checked on her every day. “Aru had been checking in on me she knew what I was going through,” Jemimah said. She also leaned on Smriti Mandhana, who tried to understand her situation and offer comfort.
However, the toughest moment came right before the highly anticipated match against Pakistan. Jemimah recalled waking up overwhelmed, despite several calm days leading up to the game. After a physio session, the emotions broke through completely. She went to her room and cried uncontrollably before calling her mother to confess she was “not feeling okay” and didn’t know what to do.
She told her mother how even fielding — her favourite part of the game — had become a source of anxiety. The response she received was unexpected and deeply grounding. “My mom told me one thing ‘Even if you want to leave the World Cup and come back home, I’m okay. I’ll fight with everyone for it. You being happy is what matters to me.’”
For Jemimah, that unconditional reassurance felt like a lifeline. “You just saying this means the world to me,” she told her mother. It reminded her that she was valued beyond her performances, beyond the numbers, beyond the jersey.
The batter further added in the interview that a visit to the church prior to the semi-final of the tournament with Arundhati Reddy lifted the weight off her shoulders, and that a small chat with Smriti Mandhana finally brought her back to normalcy before the biggest game of her career.
Jemimah’s openness lifts the veil on a reality many athletes face but rarely discuss — the quiet, consuming nature of anxiety. Her willingness to share her journey — the breakdowns, the support, the vulnerability and the recovery — offers a powerful message: that asking for help is not weakness, but strength.
And in the end, it was that support system — friends who checked in every day, a teammate who listened and a mother who offered unconditional love — that helped her find her way back to herself.
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