If we talk about Indian women’s cricket, then the name of fast bowler Jhulan Goswami does not come to mind, it cannot happen. The five-foot 11-inch bowler has played an important role in India’s success many times in his career. Nowadays, she has registered the record of taking most World Cup wickets in the ongoing ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand. Jhulan made this record by catching Anissa Mohammad in the match against West Indies. This was her 40th wicket and thus she became successful in breaking the record of 39 wickets made by Australia’s Lynn Fulston in 1988. He had earlier equaled this record by taking a wicket against New Zealand.
Jhulan started his World Cup journey 17 years ago. She took the first wicket on 22 March 2005 in the form of Inoka Galagandra of Sri Lanka. At that time, Jhulan herself did not even know that her international journey would be so long and she would one day be seen standing at this point. Jhulan has a chance to take this record further. If she can bowl in the same tone in the rest of the matches of this World Cup, then it is very possible that she can take this record to 50 wickets. In that case breaking this record may be more difficult.
Born in Nadia district of Bengal, the story of Jhulan becoming a cricketer is also very interesting. Like common Indians, Jhulan’s parents also wanted him to concentrate on studies instead of becoming a cricketer. Meanwhile, the Women’s World Cup was held in India in 1997 and its final was played between Australia and New Zealand at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Jhulan got the responsibility of child girl in this. It was during this time that he saw legends like Belinda Clark, Debbie Hawke and Katherine Fitzpatrick play and decided to make cricket a career by taking inspiration from them.
It was not easy for Jhulan to become a cricketer against the wishes of the family members. In the early days, she used to play cricket with the boys only. There was a lot of speed in his balls, due to which the boys also had difficulty in playing the balls. That’s why many times the boys used to avoid feeding them in the match. She was able to start her international career in 2002. There was no dearth of difficulties in Jhulan’s path to become a cricketer.
The distance from his home in Nadia to the training center in Kolkata was 80 km. For this, he had to get up at 4:30 in the morning and catch the train and go to Kolkata. Many times the train was missed. But she never deviated from it and continued to strive to become a cricketer. It is the result of her hard work that she became successful in making her name the record for taking the most wickets in the World Cup. Not only this, the record of taking most wickets in ODIs is also in the name of Jhulan. He has taken 249 wickets in 198 matches played so far. During this World Cup itself, she will become the first woman bowler in the world to play 200 ODIs and take more than 250 wickets.
Like Indian captain Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami also has a dream of winning the World Cup. Both had also come close to fulfilling this dream in 2017. But the defeat at the hands of England in the final did not let this dream come true. This is Jhulan and Mithali’s last World Cup, so I will try my best to make it a reality. If the dream could not be realized, then he would regret it for the rest of his life.