“It feels great, it was something long awaited and I’m glad I was able to do it today for the team,” Rodrigues said. “I just tried to keep goals small and I kept achieving them. And I like the way I changed gears today. At first I showed a lot of patience, which again was very positive for me because for me it was important to put in the time I was there to get those runs “And you know, I was doing the races, but I wasn’t spending enough time making it bigger, so I was happy to be able to do it today.”
“I got angry with myself [the way I got out in the first ODI]” she said. “I needed to be positive about myself because that works for me. If I continue to be too hard on myself, I fall very low. But for me it was important to stay positive instead of thinking: “Okay, I came out, but in the next game what could I do better.” “I tried to go back to the U-19 category, where I scored a lot of 100s and also 200s. I tried to go back to what I did then and today I try to apply it and it turned out well.”
The absence of regular captain Harmanpreet Kaur meant that it was “an extra responsibility” for her to contribute, more so as she was pushed up the order to play at number 4. While Rodrigues took time to adapt, increasing her half-back century off 62 deliveries, he changed gears in the last ten overs taking just 28 balls per ton. Along the way, he also raised a stand of 183 runs with Harleen Deol, who scored 89. Before their partnership, openers Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal had amassed a total of 156 runs.
“If your first few games give you that kind of start, you know it’s always a lot easier for us to handle the middles and take them well,” Rodrigues said. “[There were] two consecutive wickets so Harleen and I had to give ourselves some time because I think the Irish bowlers are also on top at that time. So I think one thing about the 50+ games is that we can take a little time and that’s what we did. We calculated well. “We cracked the 40, we just played risk-free cricket and we know we can always make up for it.”
Rodrigues mimed playing a song on his guitar with his bat after reaching his milestone, a celebration he had been waiting to do “for the last seven years.” While she was relieved to finally be able to do that, she hoped it would be the first of many hundreds for her. His next goal is also to help India reach the 400-run mark.
“It feels good. But there are a lot of things we can still improve on as a team because we’re always looking to keep improving. We’ve talked about when we do well we try to be a little more critical about how we can improve.” . So yeah, next game, hopefully 400.”
