New Delhi
Veteran Indian women’s cricket team pacer Jhulan Goswami announced her retirement from T20Is, effectively ruling her out for the ICC World T20I in West Indies in November. She played 68 T20Is and took 56 wickets at an economy economy rate of 5.45. India rarely play Tests and last played one in 2014, so Jhulan is likely to be restricted to ODI cricket. The 35-year-old is the highest wicket-taker in ODIs with 200 scalps from 169 games.

Of late, her lack of wickets in the shortest version was coming under the scanner and her big-hitting abilities down the order were also on the wane. The underwhelming performance at the Asia Cup, where India lost to Bangladesh twice, including in the final, was certainly the trigger for her decision to retire. Jhulan, who opened the bowling, got only one wicket in four matches and never looked penetrative enough. The fastest woman pacer of India has lost out on speed and is also not the quickest on the field now.

“Jhulan thanked BCCI and her teammates for all the love and support she garnered during her stint with the T20I team and wished them luck going forward,” BCCI stated.
With Shikha Pandey ready to take over as the pace spearhead and young guns like Puja Vastrakar and Mansi Joshi showing promise, it was time for the Bengal speedster to make way for the Gen-Next. Jhulan and Mithali Raj are the two oldest cricketers in the current set-up. Jhulan made her debut against England in Chennai way back in 2002.

Hailing from a nondescript town of Chakdah in West Bengal’s Nadia district, Jhulan’s journey was also one of breaking stereotypes. It started off with challenging the boys in her locality for pace and then the early morning train journeys to Kolkata for training at South Kolkata’s Vivekananda Park.