There are people I know personally, who on Friday morning found their eyes welling up. They saw highlights of that unreal, parallel-universe kind of victory over Australia. This doesn’t count others thousands of miles away from the DY Patil Stadium who watched Amanjot Kaur’s three ‘what, me worry?’ shots finish the match with nine balls to spare and promptly burst into tears.
There was so much of that emotion going around on the ground amongst the players, support staff, families that of course everyone invested in the result had to break down – in solidarity as much as in thanks for what we had witnessed. Those few hours of cricket that disentangled the knotty leaden-weighted dread after Australia scored 337.
Disentangled and then separated belief from disbelief, purpose from doubt, mission from memory. Then put together what mattered on a cricket field and gave us Thursday night and a new set of realities. And India’s greatest white-ball victory over Australia since December 1980 when the two countries played their first limited overs international.
Emerging as pilot, navigator and north star out of the messy scrum of arms, armpits, hands, and shoulders of her teammates, her T-shirt soaked and muddied, her face shining with tears and sweat, making signs of love and wonderment, was Jemi. Forever from today, just Jemi.
She’s been around for years, as the 13-year-old Mumbai prodigy who grew up surrounded by a series of there or thereabouts. Whether she was Jemeemah or Jemaimaah. Whether she was going to remain handy foil for Harmanpreet and Mandhana, the link between them and new gen and Power Rangers. Whether an immense talent of buzzing personality and yo-yo-ing performances would ever touch the forever-whirling stardust of greatness.
No more there or thereabouts. Never again. What we saw last evening was the emergence of Jemimah, centered in the eye of the storm. As a clutch player, as a leader. When the stakes were the highest, she raised her game and took her team along with her. Batting like she does and like she can, with her own grammar and vocabulary in skill, shot selection and adaptability.
Amongst the top ten batters in this tournament so far, Jemimah is the only one who has hit no sixes. Zero. In a game with an increased predisposition towards power-hitting, her batting may seem an anachronism but her batting in India’s last two ‘knock-outs’ (including vs New Zealand, where India set the target), Jemimah showed her value as a final-overs accelerator and finder of gaps. Also, not by accident, she has made herself one of India’s best fielders and fittest players.
Here’s a bizarre number: Australia scored 16 more runs in boundaries (186) than India (170) did. In 75 percent humidity, Jemi, with skates on, ran 140 “non-boundary runs” – 71 her own in singles and twos and 69 of her partners. That’s just under 3km in short sprints, with the length of pitch calculated at 22 yards (20.11m). And we’ve not calculated the distance covered while fielding. She felt fatigued and said she needed her teammates to gee her up, in what was a performance of skill and physical endurance.
There were times, however, it looked other-wordly. Jemimah’s near-zero response at crossing fifty and then hundred was not an act of contrived, InstaReels-inspired coolness. We were witnessing an athlete play outside of herself, the world compressed turned into the crease, her batting partner, the fielders and the gaps.
In their pivotal partnership, Harmanpreet was given calculations by Jemimah every over of where they stood and what was required. Every time she completed a single, Jemimah would hold up her left hand “like a policeman” said Ian Bishop. It was to acknowledge her partners and communicate, he said, that she was “the one in charge.” She talked non-stop – to herself, to her partners, to God. It was an innings of an icy detachment played with a searing intensity.
When it was over, everything fell away. The cricketing superhero of the night emerged as a young woman willing to put her heartbeat on loudspeaker. Open about her ambitions, her faith and her vulnerabilities because she said, wants to share with those who may be in the same space. That you are not alone.
Everything felt authentic. Why do sporting performances by Indian women resonate differently? What frequencies do they go through to reach us? Why do we feel joyful, moved but also, well, trembly? It could be Deepti Sharma giggling at the audacity of Jemimah’s lapshot, with 19 left to get off 16. Or the arms-wide-open run of Sneh Rana towards the batters afterwards or Richa Ghosh weeping into her shirt sleeves. Harmanpreet and her poker face leaning to the right to check if the winning run was completed before exploding off her chair towards coach Amol Muzumdar. Renuka Singh fist-pumping at no one, Smriti’s gleeful zig-zag around the advertising hoardings in a sprint to the middle.
Maybe it’s because from the very first step they take into a sport all the way to whatever they achieve is born out of resolutely marching on shifting sand. Where contexts and priorities are switched, goalposts moved, power, responsibilities, rewards given and taken away. Still, they march. Still, like this Indian women’s cricket team in this World Cup, they show us the best of their sport and still they keep lighting up our skies.
