Jhulan Goswami on her career: "When I started, I never thought.."



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Jhulan Goswami on her career: "When I started, I never thought.."
Jhulan Goswami on her career: "When I started, I never thought.." (Provided by Financial World)

Jhulan Goswami is a legend of Indian cricket, but also of the world cricket scene. She will retire soon, and her career is really impressive. "When I started, I never thought about playing for such a long time. It was a great experience that I've enjoyed and learnt from," Jhulan said, as quoted by cricbuzz.com She recalled her first moments and debut on the Indian team.

"Those days we used to represent the Women's cricket association of India, and since 2006 we've been under the umbrella of the BCCI. It was a different feeling. I never thought about it... being from Chakdaha, coming back to train and everyday I was going two and half hours on a one way journey.

Do training, come back and then again the next morning I'd go. I think the best memories when I first represented India - getting my India cap from my captain was an amazing feeling and bowling that first over in my career - that was the most important moment in my life."

Mithali Raj

The World Cup in 1997 was a dream come true.

Mithali Raj was a great player about whom Goswami has nothing but praise. "The first time I saw the Women's World Cup final was in Eden Gardens between Australia and New Zealand as a ball girl. And that day I dreamt that someday I might represent my country.

That is how I started... put a lot of effort into my country and that's the biggest moment in my life. "From U19 days we've (Mithali) been playing together so we have a great relationship on and off the field. But it was just to bring the women's Indian team to a different level - what it was before and what it is today is totally different.

That's the journey and we believed that we could change the face of women's cricket, we believed that we could be a top 3-4 team in the world. It was not a one-day process," Jhulan said about Mithali. "I played two [50-over] World Cup finals, would've been great for me, India and women's cricket if we could've won at least one of those.

That was the ultimate goal. You prepare so much, put in a lot of hard work. We've played two-three World Cup finals, including T20, but weren't able to win them. That hurt and that's one regret I have."

India