Jhulan Goswami Close To Becoming Leading Wicket-Taker In Women's Cricket World Cups

Since making her debut for India in 2002, Jhulan Goswami has achieved every accolade the cricketing world has to offer, be it captaining the side or spearheading the pace attack. Now, Jhulan, the leading wicket-taker in ODIs with 247 scalps in 196 games, has another milestone in her sights: the leading wicket-taker in Women's Cricket World Cups.

In India's opening match against Pakistan at Bay Oval, Jhulan took 2/26 in 10 overs in the 107-run win to stretch her scalps to 38 across five Women's Cricket World Cups since 2005. Ahead of India's second match against hosts New Zealand at Seddon Park, Jhulan is now just two wickets away from overtaking the 39 wickets taken by Lyn Fullston of Australia from 1982 to 1988.

"I'm not aware of how many wickets I have, but it is important, as a senior member of the side, to go there and perform well, give a good start, give an early breakthrough. That is my job and I want to stick to my role, that is the important thing and if you play a long time, you are going to achieve a few individual milestones," said Jhulan in the virtual press conference.

With an individual milestone coming up, Jhulan is more focused on making an impactful contribution for India ahead of the face-off against New Zealand. "That matters, that gives you a lot of joy, but what is important is how you contribute for the team -- that's the most important thing for me and I always believe in that. For me, if I'm doing well but my team is not winning, that is not a good thing for me. I enjoy when I contribute and the team wins.

"I enjoy that more and I want to stay strict in that and individual milestones don't matter much to me, because I am absolutely a team player and I always try that. I contribute as much as I can and whatever milestones are achieved, I will definitely try to enjoy those. Thank you for letting me know about this. I'm really looking forward for tomorrow's match, I want to contribute and do well."

Jhulan also pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic had brought a scare of the World Cup being cancelled altogether. The tournament, which was scheduled for 2021, had to be postponed by a year due to the pandemic. Now that the tournament is finally happening, amidst an Omicron scare in New Zealand, Jhulan is happy and grateful for the showpiece event up and running.

"I'm really happy that finally we're able to start, after postponement and Covid. Sometimes it also happened where I felt that maybe the World Cup won't happen, it was such a situation -- beyond our control, but still we must thank the ICC where they came out and are supporting this tournament and women's cricket.

"I hope women's cricket benefits a lot from this, and I'm very relieved because I thought, that maybe after so much hard work, after waiting for five years, the World Cup might get cancelled again. So yeah, it was a great feeling playing the first match."

For now, Jhulan is keen to get on to the field and enjoy the World Cup feeling irrespective of it coinciding with a big personal achievement. "When the first match was over, I realised at night that finally I have come back to the World Cup. Since 2017, I haven't played any ICC event like in a World Cup kind of tournament. So, it gave me a lot of joy and felt like 'yes, you have this feeling that behind the back, something is going on'.

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"I think I feel that's gone off because I was waiting for a long time and it felt good. I hope the momentum that we have got, we maintain that momentum and take it forward and whatever we are enjoying, we keep contributing more with enjoyment -- and that's the thing."