{"id":259891,"date":"2025-11-03T14:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T14:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/259891\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T14:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T14:58:10","slug":"i-was-never-a-cricket-fan-but-i-saw-the-glory-of-god-in-the-womens-cricket-world-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/259891\/","title":{"rendered":"I was never a cricket fan, but I saw the glory of God in the Women\u2019s Cricket World Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jemimah<\/p>\n

Connecting women\u2019s cricket<\/a> with the glory of God may seem a stretch, but stay with me.<\/p>\n

I have never been a cricket fan. At school, I watched matches from the edge of the field, confused by overs, wickets, and runs. There were no girls\u2019 teams, so I never played myself, and I\u2019ve always preferred sports that move faster (apologies to all cricket lovers).<\/p>\n

Yet last night, because my husband was already watching, I found myself viewing India\u2019s defeat of South Africa in the ICC Women\u2019s Cricket World Cup Final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The female players, mostly in their twenties, were astonishingly good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The female players, mostly in their twenties, were astonishingly good. I found myself wondering about the long, often uphill path that brought them there, how much harder it must have been for women to reach the top in a sport so long dominated by men.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0The impact of women in sport<\/a><\/p>\n

As I watched, the words of St. Irenaeus came to mind: \u201cThe glory of God is man fully alive.\u201d By \u201cman,\u201d he meant all humanity, women included, flourishing in the gifts God has placed within them. On that floodlit field, these women were fully alive: focused, fierce, composed, and radiant with purpose.<\/p>\n

A little research revealed that women\u2019s cricket has a surprisingly long history. The first recorded women\u2019s match took place in England in 1745, and by 1887 the first women\u2019s club, the White Heather Club, had been formed in Yorkshire. The first women\u2019s Test match came in 1934, and the inaugural Women\u2019s World Cup in 1973, two years before the men\u2019s. What began as an amateur pursuit, often dismissed or underfunded, has grown into a global spectacle.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0\u2018God\u2019s love for me was my anchor and stability in the unpredictable world of sport\u2019<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

So when I saw that packed 45,000-seater DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, I couldn\u2019t help but feel awe.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So when I saw that packed 45,000-seater DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, I couldn\u2019t help but feel awe. Here were women on the world stage, commanding attention and admiration, not as exceptions but as rightful heirs to their sport. I know that my namesake, Indian player, Jemimah Rodrigues is a follower Jesus, and I am certain of this: the Creator delights in seeing his children fully alive. Their gifts, sharpened by discipline, sustained by passion, are reflections of the image of God in them.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0The female form and God\u2019s glory: A new chapter in sports science<\/a><\/p>\n

You could say this about any athlete in any sport. But perhaps it was more striking because they are women, athletes who, for generations, had to fight to be seen, heard, and funded. Their excellence is not only athletic; it\u2019s redemptive. It testifies to what happens when human beings, long held back, step into the fullness of their God-given potential.<\/p>\n

I watched pastor\u2019s daughter, Jemimah Rodrigues, being interviewed after the final. She said, \u201cFirstly I want to thank Jesus, I couldn\u2019t do this on my own. I know he carried me through today, I feel like God scripted everything and at the right time, when you do things with the right intention, he always blesses. I think everything that happened so far was a set up for this. I have almost cried every day, I was not doing well mentally, going through a lot anxiety\u2026then being dropped was another challenge. But I think all I had to do was show up, and God just took care of everything\u2026 towards the end I was quoting one scripture – I had lost energy, I was very tired. I just quoted scripture that says, \u2018Stand still and he will fight for you\u2019 and that\u2019s what I did. I just stood there and he fought for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Irenaeus\u00a0wrote that God\u2019s glory is revealed in human flourishing. Watching these women play, I caught a glimpse of that glory, not abstract or distant, but embodied, moving, and fierce. It was the glory of God reflected in joy, strength, and freedom.\u00a0Cricket may never be my sport. But last night, it became a window, a reminder that wherever people live fully into their gifts, especially against the odds, the glory of God shines through.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connecting women\u2019s cricket with the glory of God may seem a stretch, but stay with me. I have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-259891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}