Jemimah Rodrigues is enjoying the best days of her life as a cricketer. After a testing time till the end of 2025, the Mumbai batter's resurgence kicked-off in the latter half of India's victorious 2025 ODI World Cup campaign. Jemimah's innings in the world record chase against Australia in the semifinal will forever be etched in the history of the women's game.
Delhi Capitals decided to capitalise on the momentum by appointing Jemimah as their new captain for the 2026 Women's Premier League season. It was an obvious move, considering that they couldn't buy back Australian veteran Meg Lanning at the WPL auctions. Regardless, captaincy is a big move forward for Jemimah who becomes the youngest captain in WPL history.
The 25-year-old overcame her India teammate and Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Smriti Mandhana (who was 26 on debut) to achieve this record. Winning the toss on captaincy debut is considered good omen and Jemimah also managed to tick this box. Not surprisingly, she opted to bowl against the defending champions Mumbai Indians.
Harmanpreet Kaur's girls were on the wrong end of a last-ball thriller against RCB in the tournament opener. It would have been a sense of deja vu for the Indian captain as Nadine de Klerk had done the same kind of heist during the 2025 ODI World Cup for South Africa. It is another matter that winning the title would have erased the sorrow of that particular game.
However, de Klerk proved that she can do such heists regularly and piloted RCB to an unlikely win. Reacting to the loss, MI made one change to their XI by replacing Saika Ishaque with Triveni Vasistha. Meanwhile, DC have gone with Marizanne Kapp, Laura Wolvaardt, Chinelle Henry and Lizelle Lee as the overseas players in their tournament opener.