 "Jemimah Rodrigues didn’t just script a run-chase; she exorcised India’s scars and proved this team can finish")
October 30, 2025. India versus Australia. Australia in the midst of yet another unbeaten run at the ODI World Cup. 15 games and counting now. They win the toss and opt to bat first. Never a bad ploy in a knockout game. Because scoreboard pressure is real.
Alyssa Healy does not take India apart this time, but Phoebe Litchfield does. Ellyse Perry shows off her big-game temperament too, and Ashleigh Gardner turns up the tempo towards the end. Australia leave a few runs out there, but still finish with 338.
No team has chased these many in a women’s ODI. Ever. Let alone in a World Cup. Let alone in a World Cup semi-final. Let alone against the gold standard in Australia.
India’s chase begins, and they rattle to 8-0 after the first over. Kim Garth takes the new ball from the other end, and her second ball is crunched over extra cover by Shafali Verma. Shafali, for the uninitiated, is not supposed to be here. She was not a part of the squad. She was not on standby either. An injury to Pratika Rawal, though, has thrust Shafali into the spotlight. So far, so good. Ball pinging off the bat nicely; the crowd loving whatever is happening.
But then, in a trice, that changes. Shafali misses a nip-backer, gets trapped on the crease, gets rapped on the pad, and is dismissed lbw. She takes a review along with her as well, and her redemption arc, does not even get to the curve, rather resembling just a point.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsSmriti Mandhana, India’s star batter, is still at the other end, watching all of this unfold. But India’s task has just gotten steeper. Perhaps a time to hope for some divine intervention too. They are also a batter light today, with Harleen Deol omitted. And that brings Jemimah Rodrigues to the crease.
Not a number three on most days for India in this format. A role she has played only a handful of times before. But now, she is here. In the thick of it. With Australia swarming. With Australia sensing their moment. And with India trying to undo years and years of heartbreak, all while seeking to scale a mountain of runs no one has ever scaled.
On occasions, it does get tricky for India. Like when Mandhana tickles a leg-side delivery through to Healy. But Jemimah does not flinch. She does not flinch an inch. She soaks up the pressure. Absorbs it like a sponge, and then, like a spring, repays Australia in kind. Almost like she is making up for all the lost moments, for all the close shaves, for all the pain, and she is doing it run by run. Stroke by stroke. And step by step.
Harman-Jeni duo defy Aussie odds at DY Patil
Most of that work was done with her captain Harmanpreet Kaur alongside her. Mandhana’s dismissal did leave India in a slight spot of bother. Especially given how many of India’s runs she has scored this year. And it was also the sort of situation where batters and teams either retreat into a shell, or try to be too gung-ho and lose their way completely.
Semi-final. Australia. Harmanpreet Kaur.
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) October 30, 2025
Aap chronology samajhiye 👊
A fighting fifty for the Indian skipper as the chase is ON in the semi-final! 💪#CWC25 Semi-Final 2 👉 #INDvAUS | LIVE NOW ➡ https://t.co/H6FmcwTyRj pic.twitter.com/tIxt97cB05
Jemimah ensured that India, at no point, flirted with that particular danger. She always seemed on top of the situation, regularly targeting the start of the over to put pressure on the bowlers, frequently rotating strike, pushing the fielders in the ring and on the fence, and seldom getting into a rut that would have required her to do something funky to get out of it.
She also played the field beautifully throughout her innings. It does not happen very often that Australia are a step behind what a batter is doing, but for much of the chase in Navi Mumbai, it felt that way.
That came through even more when Richa Ghosh fell, with India still 29 away from a win. They had 24 balls to do so, but that kind of situation would have brought forth nightmares of its own, given how India, in the past, have stumbled with the finish line in sight.
In many ways then, Thursday was Jemimah showing that she belongs among the very best this nation has to offer, but it was also about her illustrating that when push comes to shove, when everything is turned up a notch, she will be there. For her partner. For her skipper. For her team. And for her nation.
THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS! 💙🥹
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) October 30, 2025
👉 3rd CWC final for India
👉 Highest-ever run chase in WODIs
👉 Ended Australia's 15-match winning streak in CWC#CWC25 Final 👉 #INDvSA | SUN, 2nd Nov, 2 PM! pic.twitter.com/8laT3Mq25P
It was quite revealing that despite being overcome by emotions, she found just the right words to say in her Player-of-the-Match interview. And throughout it, what shone was just how badly Jemimah wanted this. Not for herself. Of course not. But for her team. For all those hours that India may have brooded over when things, from being within grasp, slipped into the more anarchic version of chaos. And for all those matches when Jemimah may have felt she was the batter to take India past the finish line, but just could not.
That this knock came when Jemimah has been going through so much off the field says a lot about her character too. In that aforementioned interview, she mentioned she had cried almost every day, and that things had spiraled out of control, with her even going through anxiety and not doing very well mentally.
This was, lest we forget, her maiden ODI World Cup. A World Cup she had to burn the midnight oil to be a part of, having been excluded from past squads. It began with a golden duck, and was followed up by another duck against South Africa, and it led to Jemimah eventually being dropped as England came calling in Indore. But still, she believed. She believed in herself. She believed in her team. She believed in destiny finally giving her the chance she had been craving.
And now, a nation of more than a billion people also believes. That if Jemimah is there, that if Jemimah can be there in such a situation, who is to stop them from going where no Indian women’s team has ever done.
Jemimah keeps faith in her abilities to bail India
Whichever way you put it, this was a supernatural effort. The sort of innings and run-chase that might fail ten out of ten times if tried again against Australia in a World Cup semi-final. But it was not about those supernatural bits. It never was.
It was always about those human moments. That shedding of baggage. Those shedding of tears. That shedding of the tag that India could never get the job done when it mattered. And Jemimah encapsulated it, and some.
When she walked in to bat, nine balls of India’s chase had been played out. When she was mobbed by her teammates at the end, only nine balls were remaining. In between, India hunted history. And in between, Jemimah fought off everything and everyone.
How did #TeamIndia make a comeback after three losses in a row? Now we know the answer! 😁
— Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) October 30, 2025
WATCH #CWC25 FINAL 👉 #SAvIND | Sun, 2nd Nov, 2 PM! pic.twitter.com/Ou5TNVEhoA
When it was all done, Jemimah quipped that while batting in the latter stages, she was muttering a scripture from the holy Bible, along the lines of just standing still and knowing that the powers above will fight for her.
And for much of the run-chase, India would have felt the same too. They just needed to stand still. Because Jemimah, with all she had, with every last ounce of energy and breath, was going to fight for them. Fight for them until the very end. And fight for them she did.
Run by run. Stroke by stroke. Step by step. And clutch moment by clutch moment.
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