Rodrigues has a high-grade hamstring tear, and India lose her for the Asia Cup and the Asian Games

India will go into their two September tournaments without the batter who won them a World Cup semi-final. The BCCI ruled Jemimah Rodrigues out of the Women’s Asia Cup and the Asian Games on Friday, after its medical team assessed her right hamstring at the Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru and found a high-grade tear.

A week ago the news read as caution. Southern Brave pulled her out of the Hundred with a hamstring, no timeline attached, three weeks out from an international tournament, which is the sort of thing teams do with players they need in September. The assessment says otherwise. High-grade is the top of the scale, and it takes her out of a window running from 28 August to 4 October.

The innings everyone will bring up

Rodrigues is 25, and the reason most people can name her is 30 October 2025 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. She made 127 not out off 134 balls, India chased 339 against Australia in the World Cup semi-final with nine balls to spare, and it stands as the highest successful chase in women’s ODI cricket. Australia had not lost a World Cup match since India beat them in the 2017 semi-final at Derby. She and Harmanpreet Kaur put on 167 for the third wicket. ESPNcricinfo later voted it the women’s ODI batting performance of the year, and India beat South Africa by 52 runs in the final for their first world title.

Both tournaments she is missing are T20, though, and that is where the loss actually bites. India went out of the T20 World Cup at the group stage in June, beaten by Australia at Lord’s on 28 June, and the middle order was the part that kept running out of runs. Rodrigues had made 143 in six innings for Brave in this year’s Hundred, with two player-of-the-match awards, before the hamstring went. In that competition, batting that reliable is close to a novelty. India are not replacing a name, they are replacing form.

Rawal has taken this call from the other end

Pratika Rawal knows what the announcement feels like from the other side of it. At the 2025 World Cup she made 308 runs in six innings at 51.33 opening the batting, then hurt her knee and ankle fielding against Bangladesh in India’s last league game and missed the rest of the tournament. Shafali Verma was called up as her replacement. The match Verma was called up for was the semi-final Rodrigues won.

Rawal’s 2026 has been broken up too. She returned for the ODIs in Australia in February, then cut her knee badly enough to need stitches while fielding against England A in Taunton, which ruled her out of the Lord’s Test in July and brought Priya Punia into that squad. She opens, Rodrigues bats in the middle, so this is not a like-for-like swap. Harmanpreet has an order to rearrange rather than a slot to fill.

What she misses

The Asia Cup is played entirely at the Dubai International Stadium, from 28 August to 13 September, eight teams split into two groups. India are in Group A with Pakistan, Thailand and Hong Kong China. They open against Thailand on 30 August and finish the group against Pakistan on 5 September, with the semi-finals on 10 and 11 September and the final on the 13th.

Six days after that final, the Asian Games open in Aichi-Nagoya and run to 4 October. The cricket there is T20 as well, and India are defending champions after winning gold at the last Games in Hangzhou. Rodrigues was in the 15 the BCCI named for Japan on 30 June, two days after the T20 World Cup exit. Rawal has been named in the Asia Cup squad. Who takes the Asian Games place has not been announced.

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