\u201cJHULAN IS Jhulan.\u201d Mithu Mukherjee uses this to bookend her responses a few times over the 15-minute conversation. It seems apt in many ways. Jhulan Goswami had after all broken new ground for women\u2019s cricket, once again. The world\u2019s most successful female wicket-taker in international cricket, across formats, was no stranger to setting new benchmarks for her sport before she took the field in Galle.<\/p>\n
With her two-wicket haul in the first ODI against Sri Lanka, the 35-year-old pacer set another one, this time becoming the first to take 300 wickets, and further accentuate her longstanding coach\u2019s claim that Jhulan is indeed Jhulan, a cut above everyone else. To put it in context, the next best is former Australian pacer Cathryn Fitzpatrick, who finished with 240 wickets overall across Tests and ODIs.<\/p>\n
Incidentally, Mukherjee had spent the previous evening watching James Anderson go past Glenn McGrath in Test cricket\u2019s overall wickets\u2019 tally. Back in her living-room in Kolkata, she reveals to have inadvertently drawn comparisons between the English swing legend and India\u2019s foremost performer with the ball. \u201cIt\u2019s different bowling spin at 35 and 36, after having done so for nearly 15 years. But when I saw Anderson running in ball after ball, I couldn\u2019t but draw comparisons with Jhulan. It\u2019s remarkable to see them not lose their momentum or their motivation despite having bowled their heart out for so long,\u201d says Mukherjee, a former India cricketer herself and presently a Bengal selector.<\/p>\n
Goswami is more McGrath though, at least in turning each wicket she takes into a special memory. \u201cI remember all my 200 wickets,\u201d she\u2019d said last year after becoming the first woman to reach that milestone in ODI cricket. Goswami is not done yet, and is likely to have a lot more scalps to add to her enviable memory-bank, feels Mukherjee. She bases it on how her one-time pupil has not just managed to keep her motivation to don the India jersey alive, but managed to burgeon it quite dramatically. \u201cCricket is everything for Jhulan. And even before she left for Sri Lanka, she called me and said \u2018Mithu di, I want to take a five-wicket haul on this tour. I haven\u2019t got one for a while\u2019,\u201d recalls Mukherjee. Goswami\u2019s last fifer, for the record, came in 2011.<\/p>\n
It perhaps also shows in the lanky pacer\u2019s recent decision to announce her retirement from T20I cricket, but continue toiling away in the longer format. \u201cT20 is a bit fast and I am slowing down day by day. I found that I was mixing T20 and ODI. The thinking wasn\u2019t clear; the driving force I wanted wasn\u2019t there. Us chakkar mein I wasn\u2019t enjoying my bowling,\u201d she would tell Women\u2019s CricZone in Galle following her latest record-book entry. That clarity of thought, Mukherjee adds, comes through a lot in Goswami\u2019s bowling over the last few years. It shows up especiallly in how she\u2019s gone from being a tearaway who could hit speeds not seen often in women\u2019s cricket to a shrewder and cannier bowler.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe used to have the pace, but was more dependent on the information she was receiving from her captain and the seniors. Now, she\u2019s in control of every ball she bowls and knows exactly what she wants to achieve with each one of them, even if her speeds have dropped,\u201d explains Mukherjee. \u201cShe\u2019s also started working extensively on her fitness, follows her dietician\u2019s orders very strictly, and wants to give a lot more to Indian cricket,\u201d she adds. Goswami, who made her debut for India in 2002, has seen her life transform over the years, from the time she would have to endure two-hour train rides from Chakdah to Kolkata for training\u2014at times without her parents\u2019 consent. These days she owns two flats in the city, and when she isn\u2019t busy with her training never fails to spend a few days with Mukherjee.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is a simple girl, who prefers to be quiet mostly. You will never hear a bad word from her about anyone. She has never forgotten her roots, and the first thing she did after tasting success was build a big house for her family in the village,\u201d says Mukherjee.<\/p>\n
A lot has changed over the years, both in terms of Goswami\u2019s approach to her bowling as well as her pursuit of keeping her body going. Her love for Kishore Kumar and Rabindrasangeet has remained as strong as ever. \u201cShe loves to talk about their music and of course Bollywood movies,\u201d adds Mukherjee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cJHULAN IS Jhulan.\u201d Mithu Mukherjee uses this to bookend her responses a few times over the 15-minute conversation. It seems apt in many ways. Jhulan Goswami had after all broken new ground for women\u2019s cricket, once again. The world\u2019s most successful female wicket-taker in international cricket, across formats, was no stranger to setting new benchmarks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42040,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42038\/revisions\/42040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}