Xtra Time Web Desk: Veteran India women pacer Jhulan Goswami on Tuesday said her biggest motivation is to keep performing well for the country as it is a huge honopur to represent Team India.
The highest wicket-taker in women’s ODIs with 231 scalps on Tuesday claimed 4/42 to set up India’s nine wicket win over South Africa here that levelled the five-match series one-all.
“Representing India is the biggest motivation for me. I don’t think you have to look elsewhere for motivation,” Goswami said in the post-match interaction here.
“You cannot belong to the team if you don’t perform your best everyday. It’s important for us to maintain our fitness and come out strong on the field. It’s not going to be easy.”
The pacer from Bengal had called it quits from T20I format in 2018 in a surprise announcement ahead of the T20 World Cup in the West Indies.
“When I retired from T20Is (in 2018), the most important thing for me was to just focus on one format. I had niggles here and there. It was quite difficult for me to maintain (my fitness).
Then I spent a lot of time in training. I tried to do well everyday. As for me, I was doing a lot of training since lockdown. I just kept following that. Representing India is my biggest achievement. That’s my responsibility and job,” she said.
The BCCI had on Monday announced that Indian women’s cricket team will play a Test for the first time after more than six years in a one-off match against England.
India had played their last Test match in November 2014 against South Africa in Mysore and had emerged victorious by an innings and 34 runs.
“Everyone is very excited. You always want to play Test cricket. That’s actually a lot of challenge both physically and mentally. We thank BCCI for understanding the need of Test cricket,” signed off Jhulan.