“I told our head coach, ‘I am not bowling properly. You can drop me next time,’” recounts Indian cricketer Jhulan Goswami.
A packed Netaji Indoor Stadium in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata listens, bemused.
It’s August 2017. Goswami, having returned from the UK a fortnight earlier, is speaking at the annual awards ceremony of the Cricket Association of Bengal. The recollection beggars belief.
The audience, many of whom are her former India and current Bengal team-mates, are caught unawares.
Surely, the highest wicket-taker in women’s international cricket didn’t just reveal she had asked India’s head coach to leave her out of the XI two games into the 2017 ODI World Cup.
Surely, it can’t be the same fast bowler who propelled India to the final of the tournament with searing spells in the virtual quarter-final against New Zealand and the semi-final against Australia.
And India’s new-ball talisman who put them within touching distance of a maiden world title with 10-3-23-3 against England in the final of the tournament – who was it even? Surely, it couldn’t have been her.
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***
To understand an athlete like Goswami, you have to understand her journey.
To weigh the legacy she leaves behind as she bows out of international cricket, you have to acknowledge the humanity that exemplified her two-decade-long career.
At 39 years and 303 days, Goswami, the oldest woman cricketer to represent India, called time on her career at the Lord’s Cricket Ground on Saturday.
Her final assignment in India colours – the third match of a victorious three-game ODI series against hosts England – served a reminder of everything she achieved on the field.
The mastery of seam bowling, with balls red, white and pink, at home and overseas; a record haul of 355 international wickets; 284 caps across formats and most wickets in ODI World Cup history across her five appearances – Goswami accomplished an array of incredible feats.
The first ball of her final over in international cricket made her the first woman to deliver 10,000 balls in ODIs.
Besides, she holds the distinction of becoming the first from the country to win the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year Award, in 2007.
She clinched the No. 1 spot on the inaugural ICC women’s rankings the following summer and embarked on a maiden stint as India captain soon after.
Goswami’s CV is decked with awards and rewards aplenty. But it’s not the tangibles alone that her swansong, and the build-up to it, have underscored.
“Her approach towards the team - every game going out there and doing well – that’s something nobody can beat,” Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s new all-format captain, said ahead of Goswami’s farewell series.
“I have never seen her change [the intensity] of her preparation or practice...[something] hardly you see any bowler is doing."
On Wednesday, after India won the second ODI to clinch their first bilateral series victory in England in 23 years, Kaur shed light on Goswami’s imprint on those who followed in her footsteps.
"She's someone who has taught us a lot," said Kaur, who made her ODI debut in the 2009 World Cup, when Goswami was captain.
"When I debuted, she was a leader and I learned a lot from her, and now our young bowlers, like Renuka [Singh] and Meghna Singh, they are also learning from her.
“They are learning how she bowls and getting that rhythm from her. She's been a great inspiration for all of us and we've learned a lot from her."
Will they ever forget this moment?
— Annesha Ghosh (@ghosh_annesha) September 24, 2022
Will we ever forget this moment?
📷 @BCCIWomen pic.twitter.com/YXirsGcNTO
***
Goswami broke barriers in a way few had in the history of Indian cricket.
The eldest of three siblings, she first felt a kinship with sport at eight, when she saw Diego Maradona breaking down on TV after Argentina’s loss in the 1990 football World Cup final.
Cricket caught her fancy in 1992, during the men’s ODI World Cup, fast bowlers Kapil Dev and Imran Khan particularly piquing her curiosity.
By 13, she had started playing tennis-ball cricket with boys in her neighbourhood. The thought of giving the sport a try in earnest crossed her mind two years later.
"The first time I saw the Women's World Cup final was in Eden Gardens [in 1997] between Australia and New Zealand, as a ball girl,” said Goswami during a virtual press conference from London, on the eve of her retirement.
“And that day I dreamt that someday I might represent my country. That is how I started...”
When she made her debut in international cricket in January 2002, the Indian pacer with most wickets in women’s ODIs was Renu Margrate, with 10 scalps to her name.
Goswami, the highest wicket-taker in the format, bowed out at Lord’s with 255 strikes. Only three other female
fast bowlers from the country have taken 50 or more wickets.
A craft few women in India considered a choice for an occupation became Goswami’s calling card. This, despite the death traps for pace bowlers that Indian pitches used for women’s international and domestic cricket were through the three-fourths of her career.
“The 19-year-old Jhulan, when she debuted against England in 2002 in Chennai...just wanted to bowl fast,” said Goswami.
“She just wanted to take one wicket, and that was her first aim: to represent India and bowl fast. That's what she did at the time. And the desire to bowl fast has remained with me forever."
Discipline has been the bedrock of Goswami’s longevity. She broke the task of preserving her body for the long haul into minor detail, and tried to master each part, as she did fast bowling.
She understood the demands of an increasing workload in women’s cricket in the 2010s and an ageing physique corroded by injuries.
That awareness led to her retiring from T20Is in August 2018, a format where she’s the only Indian woman pacer with 50 or more wickets.
"Whenever you get injured, you realise, 'Again, I'm injured, I'll miss a series again, miss matches
again'” she said.
“It was a difficult time [during injuries] to sit back and watch games and not be able to participate. Those were some of the ups and downs.
“That is what being a fast bowler is all about. You are going to have a lot of injuries and that is where character is required - how you are going to come back whenever you fall down."
***
That Goswami outlasted many of her peers on the international circuit is, in part, down to the high standards she’s held herself to.
At training. On match days. Fiercely in public. Ruthlessly in private.
A little over two months before the 2017 ODI World Cup, she had climbed atop the wicket takers’ list in ODI cricket.
With a 181st wicket in the format, she bested the record held for over a decade by former Australia quick Cathryn Fitpatrick.
An underwhelming start to her World Cup campaign – she went wicketless in the first two matches at the expense of 39 runs and 37 runs respectively – however, prompted her to ask India’s then head coach, Tushar Arothe, to drop her.
But Arothe, as well as Mithali Raj, Goswami’s recently retired longtime team-mate and former captain, refused to give up on India’s most experienced bowler.
Goswami repaid the faith with a string of iconic spells. India, who had only ever made a World Cup final once before, in 2005, scripted a breakout campaign. Overnight, women’s cricket in the country shot to unprecedented
prominence.
India’s loss to England in the final of that tournament cut deep, though. The hurt of falling at the final hurdle of a second 50-over World Cup, ran deeper.
Goswami, eyeing a maiden world title for India, appeared in the 2022 edition earlier this year in New Zealand, but the team crashed out in the league stage.
"I played two [50-over] World Cup finals. [It] would've been great for me, India and women's cricket, if we could've won at least one of those,” Goswami said.
“That hurt, and that's one regret I have."
***
The highs and lows of Goswami’s illustrious career will soon find fictionalised retelling as a biopic on Netflix.
The movie, named “Chakda ‘Xpress”, takes its title from the arduous train commutes she would undertake all by herself as a 15-year-old in the 1990s to learn cricket.
“I am very fortunate to play this sport,” Goswami said, reflecting on her journey from small-town Bengal to Vivekanda Park in Kolkata, where she first received formal training.
“[I] never thought about all this [her feats and records] coming from Chakdaha. I didn’t know anything about
women’s cricket," she said. "Thanks to my family, they supported me from the beginning.”
For a career so phenomenal, a farewell at Lord’s, with India sweeping the ODI series 3-0 and Goswami returning 10-3-30-2, felt like a fitting ending.
A cinematic depiction of her journey would be an apt follow-up.
Get ready to be bowled over by the life and story of the legendary @JhulanG10 🏏 Starring @AnushkaSharma and directed by @prosit_roy, Chakda Xpress is coming soon! #HarDinFilmyOnNetflix pic.twitter.com/tEHkt97EWh
— Netflix India (@NetflixIndia) August 29, 2022
