Jemimah Rodrigues is utterly disappointed after India's a semi-final exit from the Women's T20 World Cup but the top-order batter wants to count on the positives and sees her team dominating the game in the foreseeable future.
Indian women's cricket has progressed by leaps and bounds in the last few years, but a major trophy has eluded the Women in Blue. They lost the ODI World Cup final to England in 2017, the 2020 T20 World Cup final to Australia and the 2022 CWG final to Australia in Birmingham.
"I think this team has been showing a lot of promise, we are pushing and pushing and we know something big is coming. What is in our hands is to keep working harder and keep trusting.
"We know when it's our time, nobody can stop this team. This team is going to dominate for ages," Rodrigues told ICC digital after India lost the semi-final by five runs to Australia in Cape Town on Thursday.
Chasing a competitive 172-run target, India nearly pulled off a thrilling win riding on skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (52 off 34) and Jemimah Rodrigues's (43 off 24) 41-ball 69-run fourth wicket stand before falling just short.
Hailing the performances of youngsters like wicket-keeper Richa Ghosh, Rodrigues said India will upstage Australia in near future.
"The first one will be the rise of youngsters like Richa. This Indian team is searching for a finisher and she could be the one, and she is the one for us.
"This team shows a lot of promise. And if you go to see how the average age is, it's around 24, so I imagine that we'll be giving this Australian team competition a few years down the line," she said.
It was so near yet so far for India on Thursday night, and Rodrigues said it will take some time to get over the loss.
"Honestly it’s not sunk in still. Everyone was quiet in the dressing room. It will take us some time," she said.
"What we discussed was to have the right intent and cricket is a game that anything can happen. We are not really focussed on the results, we are focussed on the process but things didn't go our way.
"Few unfortunate run outs ... but it teaches you that failure is not failure, it's actually a learning. We will take a lot of learning from this and we promised we are going to work hard."
Had it not been for Harmanpreet's freaky run out, India could have ended on the other side of the result.
"We were going well. We had it under control. If you had seen them most of the time, we were above them in every phase. Just the last phase we messed up.
"Harman's dismissal was a very unfortunate one. I don't know what to say. This is like a learning experience. And I promise you that every single girl is going to work very hard," she said.
