Kolkata, July 22: Jhulan Goswami played a no less significant role in India's march to the final of the ICC Women's World Cup. But the gangly pacer's own journey to the top of the sport was not so smooth. She had to hurdle over several obstacles, even her own mother's wrath.
Jhulan has her eyes fixed more on cricket than studies and this, obviously, worried her mother. Jhumpa, Jhulan's sister, reminicised the early days. "She never wanted to go to school and her passion was cricket. Sometimes, our mother would lock her inside the house to prevent her from going to the ground. But that did not deter her," said Jhumpa.
"But she managed to get out of the room silently and go to the Friends Club to play cricket," she said.
Sujit Sarkar, secretary of Friends Club, nodded in agreement. "We all were scared after Jhulan came to the club. We knew her mother would come after sometime in search of Jhulan and then she would scold us. But having watched her passion, finally everybody in her family stopped trying to obstruct Jhulan," he said.
But at Chakdha, some 65 kilometers from Kolkata, the birth place of Jhulan, offered her more challenges, remembered her mother Jharna Goswami.
"Jhulan went to the local cricket ground under the pretext of going for tutition. But the boys did not initially allow her to play. But in one match, the Friends did not have enough players, so they drafted in Jhulan. She took two wickets in that match and the boys began to watch her with more respect," she said.
OneIndia News