Navi Mumbai, Nov. 2 -- In the immediate afterglow of her finest evening in India colours, Jemimah Rodrigues was a bundle of emotions... lost in happy tears in the middle after defeating mighty Australia. And she was still crying close to midnight... letting her deepest feelings of anxiety be known to the wider world as she addressed the media. Whether it is with her dressing room pranks, strumming the guitar in the team bus or throwing herself around on the field while exhibiting her sharp fielding reflexes, the lively Mumbai girl always seems to hold centrestage effortlessly. But a batting hero, she has rarely been. If there was a motion film on the Indian team, Jemimah would be the character artist, winning awards with critical acclaim. And that's not just how the outside world viewed Jemimah. Earlier in the tournament, she was the one to make way for an all-rounder. It was a moment that showed how vulnerable her place in the side was. Jemimah had entered the semis on the back of an unbeaten 76 vs New Zealand but she had a quiet start to the campaign, including two no scores. Having added new layers to her batting in her bid to ace a new role in the middle order, Jemimah was struggling to process being dropped from a key match vs England. For the 25-year-old, this event was her shot at redemption, after missing the 2022 ODI World Cup. At the time, the selectors felt she hadn't done enough to hold her spot in the squad. Now the team management was telling her she wasn't an automatic playing eleven pick anymore. Jemimah's cuts went deeper. "I was going through a lot of anxiety at the start of the tournament. Before a few games, I used to call my mom and cry the entire time, let it all out. Because when you are going through anxiety, you just feel numb. You don't know what to do," she said after the match. "In this time, my mom, dad supported me a lot. Also, there was Arundhati (Reddy) whom I think almost every day, I have cried in front of her. She checked on me every single day. There was Smriti (Mandhana), who knew what I was going through. Radha (Yadav) who has always been there taking care of me. I am so blessed to have friends, I can call family, and I didn't have to go through it alone." Jemimah's faced more turbulence outside the field too. A three-year membership at a private gymkhana conferred on her was cancelled when her father Ivan was accused of carrying out religious activities in the club premises. The Bandra girl has never shied away from expressing her faith publicly, from which she drew strength. In her post-match media conference, struggling to hold back tears, Jemimah quoted the Bible, "Weeping endures for a night, but joy cometh in the morning'. And today joy came, but I am still weeping." Jemimah's father is also her coach and his warm embrace of a sobbing Jemi after she had lifted the team to a World Cup final in front of a 35,000 strong crowd was a picture that spoke of the father-daughter's sense of fulfilment to overcome their inner turmoil. Circa 2017 and Jemimah was among a bunch of Mumbai age-group girls, waiting at the Mumbai airport to welcome the Indian team that had finished runners-up at the ODI World Cup that year. Until she discovered her calling in cricket, she played hockey (state level) with the same zeal. Her hockey skills now come in handy to upskill her batting. "I used to stand close to the goal post and deflect the ball. I use the same technique to deflect the ball over the head of fielders behind the stumps. It's nice when another sport helps you in your sport," she told HT days before the World Cup. In the same interview, she also spoke about visualising lifting the World Cup here in front of friends and family. Well, she's a night's sleep away from walking out to fulfil her dream. This time, perhaps as the lead artist, not a support cast. Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti, captain and vice captain, have been the two poster girls of the team and rightly so but Jemimah's unbeaten 127 in the semi-final may have gone a long way in her becoming the third headline act of Indian women's cricket. Jemimah was too full of emotion to place the innings herself. "I mean, how do I rate this innings? Actually, I have not let it sink in," she said. "All I would say was I didn't play for my 100. I didn't play to prove a point. I didn't play for my 50. I just played to make sure India wins. I wanted to see India win. That was my only motivation." It's a coincidence that in her best ever showing, after all the chopping and changing of places, Jemimah had walked out to bat at No.3. She had soaked up the pressure, used the supporters in the stands as allies and stayed unbeaten till the end. It was a performance that held the promise of being a cornerstone in the future....