India legend and arguably the greatest pacer to grace women’s cricket, Jhulan Goswami, bid adieu to international cricket at Lord’s. Jhulan’s farewell match and her debut game were quite similar in more ways than one. Both of these matches came against England and India won both matches with Jhulan clinching two wickets in her debut as well as in the final game.
More importantly, Jhulan scripted and conquered a highly-successful and unprecedented two-decade-long journey between those two games. On Sunday, Jhulan brought down the curtains on her career with 355 international wickets to her name — the most in the women’s game.
As the ‘Chakdaha Express’ bid farewell to the international game, her first India captain Anjum Chopra reminisced Jhulan’s debut in the 2002 ODI at Chennai and subsequent cricket journey in a conversation with Firstpost.
“I had already heard about her in 1999 or 2000 that there is this tall fast bowler from Chakdaha. I remember watching her bowl for the first time in 2000 during an inter-zonal First-Class cricket match. She had this raw pace and she was raw in every sense. Very nice, humble, very jovial,” recalled the cricketer-turned-commentator.
Anjum, who scored 3,645 runs in 157 international matches and was one of the leading batters of her time, further recalled the time Jhulan joined her at Air India and the two hit it off right away even before becoming national teammates.
“She got into the India team in 2002. We were playing England and I was making my captaincy debut. Tarak Sinha ‘sir’ was the coach. We already were teammates before she joined India. We played for Air India together. We got on very well together from the time she came into the national camp. There was this group of ours during that time and we always spent our time together. She always had an attitude of learning and growing,” Anjum shared.
Reflecting on Jhulan’s wicket-laden two-decade-long journey, which is extremely rare for a pacer in women’s or men’s cricket, Anjum said that what made the veteran pacer extra special was she “enhanced” her contribution to India’s victories as her career progressed, but her retirement will leave behind a large void that will not be easy to fill.
“She always had talent but as her career progressed she evolved as a player. She enhanced her contribution. Jhulan has always been contributing as a player. She was a match-winner. And her contributions only improved with time. She had tough times but they never lasted long. She always managed to get over the loss of form,” the former India captain said.
“Jhulan will leave behind a large void. Purely because of her performances, her impact and the values that she brought to the Indian team. I won’t say anybody can fill her shoes. Even if India manage to find a valid replacement in years to come it will be a saviour. She is a once-in-a-generation player.
Watch: Wicket in her last over! Jhulan Goswami bids adieu to international cricket in style
On how India could try to replace Jhulan, Anjum had a straightforward reply that Jhulan is irreplaceable.
“You don’t replace Jhulan Goswami. You can find players who can fill the role that Jhulan Goswami had been playing for India. If there was a replacement it would have happened already. There is no replacement. But we do have talented bowlers coming through. There are Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh and Renukla are in the team. They are talented players but they are not replacements for Jhulan Goswami. They have their own skill levels and their own values…Jhulan was an all-format player,” Anjum signed off.
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