We believe our time is now - Jemimah Rodrigues

On March 15 last year, as per the admission of Jemimah Rodrigues, silence spoke. A third successive loss in the Women's Premier League final had left little scope for words to flow freely in the Delhi Capitals' dressing room.

The memory of that evening is still fresh for Rodrigues. "Everyone was really sad," she confesses. "Nobody spoke as much. But I think everyone just felt like the silence spoke a lot that day, you know? It still hurts and we can't believe it's happened time and time again with us."

For as heartbroken as they would have been, like responsible leaders, coach Jonathan Batty and captain Meg Lanning took the onus on themselves to break the silence in the room and lift the team from its individual and collective emotional low.

"They said that we are so incredibly proud of this team," Rodrigues recalls. "[They added] 'These are some of the best humans you'll ever meet and some of the finest cricketers. We've played extraordinary cricket and one day doesn't define us. Things will change'."

It so happened that Lanning's words to the team: 'the sun will rise again' also invariably turned out to be her parting message. Even if the sun is to rise this season on Delhi Capitals, she won't be around to bask in it.

Given the wealth of riches and limitations on retention, Delhi Capitals had to part ways with their captain who had guided the side to the final in each of the three seasons of WPL so far. They have handed the reins now to the 25-year-old Rodrigues, who finds herself in the envious position of having to guide WPL's most dominant and consistent team to its first-ever title victory.

She will not only be the youngest of the five captains in the competition this season but also the one with the least captaincy experience at the elite level (beyond domestic cricket). In pursuit of DC's maiden title, she will lean on her limited experience in decision-making roles with the national team, like taking the onus of ensuring the right fielder is in the right position, and at right angles. More importantly, she will be leaning on the lessons picked up from her predecessor.

"Meg has been one of the greatest captains I've ever played under," Rodrigues said on Tuesday. "What she's done for DC has just been phenomenal. I couldn't ask for a better person to learn from. Last year, I did pick her brains a little bit on captaincy. I did speak to her about how she got captaincy at a really young age, how she dealt with it, and what is important for captaincy. She has passed on a lot of her experience to me."

Recalling a game from the second season of the Indian Premier League - against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in New Delhi, which DC won by one run - Rodrigues recalls picking an important trait from her former captain.

"After we won, I just went to Meg and I asked her, "Meg, weren't you nervous? I mean, it went down the wire."

To which, Lanning replied, "Jemi, to be honest, I was nervous."

Before Rodrigues's wonderment on why the stress didn't show up on her captain's face, found an answer, Lanning continued, "As a captain, if I start panicking there, my team's going to panic. But if I stay calm, my team's going to stay calm."

Rodrigues still remains charmed by that approach, one that's quite in contrast to her Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur's overtly emotional approach. She is certain that she wants to develop her own unique style to captaincy, one that's natural to her.

Shedding light on the captaincy approaches of the two other Indian captains in the competition, and what she has picked from them, she said, "Harry di is more of the aggressive captain. She wants to be involved in everything that's happening. She wants to lead from the front, especially on the big stage when the moment matters the most. Harry di is always the one like, I want to go there and perform and make sure my team wins.

"From Smriti, I've learned how to stay calm. She's very tactical, how she plans, how she goes about with her decisions. She's a very smart cricketer. She has the plans in place, but at the same time, she's very calm and she understands the bowlers well. The relation the bowlers have with her, I think that is a very important thing as a captain to have."

Rodrigues is hopeful of not changing her personality in the role of a leader. But she wishes to draw from her emotional lows to help guide her teammates better.

"In the last three years, we have had everything - ups, downs, in between. It prepared me to become the person and the player I am right now. I know, we don't like failures, like I personally don't like failures. But to be honest, if it was not for the failures that I faced, if it was not for those low moments, then maybe I wouldn't learn what I've learned. Failure is not a failure when you learn something from it. Then it's actually a win.

"So maybe few of those heartbreaks in the World Cups of coming so close and not being able to finish in a finals against Australia and losing by five runs or seven runs, those heartbreaks actually maybe, maybe something on the inside, gave me the courage. Maybe it came at the right time.

"If you'd asked me if I would want to change anything that's happened to me over the last three years, however hard it's been, however easy it's been, I wouldn't change anything because everything has shaped me and made me the player I am today. And has prepared me for what's next and what's ahead.

"Sometimes it's important for us as captains, as leaders to go through stuff so that your players can relate to you. It makes a difference when you talk to them. I've always been this person. From childhood, I've always looked out for others."

Even if Delhi Capitals haven't won the WPL so far, the benchmark has been set. Rodrigues offers no sense of humility before claiming that DC has been the best side in the three years of this competition, but is confident of shouldering the responsibility of in fact taking the team one step further.

"We've been the best team in the tournament throughout the last three years. and yeah, things didn't go well in the finals of all three years. But you know, the thing about time is, it changes. And you never know, things just fall into place. We saw it happen with us in the World Cup till then.

"Everyone used to call us - the Indian women's team - chokers. But things changed. And I don't think we changed anything much. We just kept working hard and believing. And that's what DC has also done consistently. We keep believing that our time is now."