Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur showered praise on Jemimah Rodrigues after she played a match-winning knock in the Women’s World Cup semifinal against Australia at Navi Mumbai on Thursday. Chasing a mammoth total of 339 runs, Rodrigues scored a magnum opus knock of 127 runs. 

India registered a memorable five-wicket win to make it to the summit clash.

Team India lost early wickets of their opening pair, Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana, but Rodrigues added 167 runs with captain Harmanpreet Kaur to steady the ship and keep India in the contest. 

India’s win also broke the record of the highest run-chase in Women ODIs, going past Australia’s 331, which they recently made against India at Vizag. Kaur revealed Rodrigues was doing all the calculations in the run chase when they were batting together.

Harmanpreet Kaur said in the post-match presentation, Yeah, definitely. Jemimah is someone who always wants to do really well for the team because she is someone who is always very calculative and wants to take the responsibility and we always have that trust in her, and today was a very special knock from her. We both had a very good time on the pitch. Whenever we were batting, we were just complementing each other and calculating and she was doing all the calculations there for me and I think that was something she is always in the game and I really enjoy batting with her.”

She added, “Before I go, she always keeps telling me, we’ve got five runs, we’ve got two more balls left. So before I say anything, she is already saying it to me. So I think that shows how involved she is and I was just so amazed to see what she was thinking and how she was even pushing myself. So I think we should give a lot of credit to her for the way she kept her hold and kept batting for the team.”

India will take on South Africa in the final on Sunday.