Mocked for reels, targeted for faith: Jemimah’s 127 shuts the trolls

Navi Mumbai: Jemimah Rodrigues’ unbeaten 127 in the Women’s World Cup semifinal on Thursday set off a call for a “collective apology” to a player who has carried years of trolling, abuse and unfair criticism, much of it intensifying in recent months, and answered it with a match-winning century in a record chase.

Rodrigues has been a visible, engaging presence off the field, which endeared her to many supporters but also fed a narrative among detractors who mocked her music, her reels and her personality as signs of a lack of seriousness.

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During lean patches, the tone shifted from criticism to targeted abuse, with sexist barbs and personal attacks becoming common, and with religion dragged in through slurs and innuendo.

The 2024 episode at a Mumbai club involving her family became a flashpoint, triggering a wave of misinformation and bringing threats that she has since spoken about in the context of anxiety and the strain of public life.

In the months before the World Cup, she was also moved around the XI, faced calls to be dropped, and saw timelines fill with claims that she could not close big games.

Her cricketing record shows how hard the counter-evidence has been earned.

Rodrigues broke through early in Mumbai age-group cricket and became only the second Indian woman to score a double hundred in Under-19 one-day cricket. She forced her way into the Indian side in 2018 and built a body of work across formats and leagues, from the WBBL and The Hundred to the WPL, where her value at the auction reflected her role as a middle-order accelerator and a top fielder.

When she was left out, she rebuilt; when teams asked for a different role, she adapted; when questions were raised about temperament, she set out to answer them in the only currency that counts.

The semifinal offered that currency in full. India were chasing 339 against the defending champions, a target no team had ever overhauled in women’s ODIs.

Rodrigues walked in with the pressure of a knockout and batted through to 127 not out off 134 balls, shared the decisive stand with captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who made 89, and kept control when the asking rate nudged up in the last phase.

India finished at 341/5 with nine balls to spare, completed the highest successful ODI chase in the women’s game, and logged a first World Cup win over Australia in more than two decades.

Public figures and former players praised the knock and called out the pile-ons of the past; timelines that had carried jeers turned to congratulations; and even some of those who had mocked her acknowledged that they had been unfair.

There were still voices trying to hold on to old talking points, but they sat uneasily against a scoreboard that had already closed the argument.

A young batter who was told she lacked nerve for the biggest stages played an innings that demanded nerve at every step, and did it in a match that leaves no room for excuses.

If there is an apology to be made, it is for the casual certainty with which many people labelled a player without allowing for form, role, context or growth, and for the willingness to amplify slurs because they came wrapped as “banter”.

The redemption, if that is what people want to call it, rests not in a social media trend but in the way Rodrigues used a World Cup semifinal to write her own defence in plain sight.

India now faces South Africa in the final, and Rodrigues will walk out without the noise that followed her for months. The bat has done the talking.