Rodrigues and Mullally: rewriting history with bat and mitre

A match-winning innings and the rise to Archbishop both speak of the quiet power of possibility

Henry Corbett

Henry Corbett, a vicar in Liverpool and chaplain to Everton Football Club.

Sarah Mullally and Jemimah Rodrigues.

It’s a World Cup cricket semi-final between India and Australia. Australia are the world champions. They are unbeaten in their last 15 matches, and have won all their group matches impressively. They are overwhelming favourites. India have lost three of their group matches and only just managed to qualify for the semi-finals.

The match is being played in Mumbai. The ground is packed and millions are watching on television. Australia win the toss and bat first. They make 338 runs in their 50 overs, an outstanding score. India are facing the highest run chase in World Cup history to win the match.

India’s innings gets underway and a wicket goes down in the second over.

Out walks Jemimah Rodrigues, 25 years young, nervous, in front of a full crowd of 45,000, in the city where she was born and grew up. Earlier in the competition she had been dropped from the team. Just over 3 hours later she is 127 not out, off of just 134 balls, and she has steered India to one of the greatest wins in Women’s World Cup history, and her innings has been described as one of the greatest World Cup innings of all time.

What does she have in common with Archbishop-elect Sarah Mullally? They are both Christians, sisters in the worldwide family of God’s Church, and when they were both young children neither knew that there was any possibility of their being where they are now.

Jemimah Rodrigues was born in September 2000 and as a child didn’t know women’s cricket existed. She played with her two older brothers, and hockey looked a more likely avenue for her sporting talents. When she went to play cricket, encouraged by her parents, she was the only girl among 500 boys. Playing in a women’s cricket World Cup final watched by a sell-out crowd? Not possible, surely.

Sarah Mullally was born in March 1962. A woman as Archbishop of Canterbury? It was 1994 before the first women became priests, and 2015 when the first woman was a Bishop.

Now Jemimah Rodrigues has inspired a nation with her sensational innings that led to the defeat of the previously all-conquering Australian women’s team, and India went on to win the final against a resilient South Africa side in front of another packed crowd in Mumbai. It was the first time India’s women’s cricket team had won the World Cup. The most famous Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar posted on his social media of the team: “They have inspired countless young girls across the country to pick up a bat and ball, take the field and believe that they too can lift that trophy one day”. The Indian men’s cricket team’s head coach Gautam Gambhir posted: “You have not just created history, you’ve created a legacy that will inspire generations of girls.” Sarah Mullally becoming Archbishop of Canterbury will similarly inspire generations of young girls in their hopes and aspirations.

But there is even more to Jemimah’s inspiring legacy than encouraging girls to use their sporting gifts and helping to change the culture so that can happen. She has also been very open and honest about her struggles, disappointments, anxieties and about her very genuine Christian faith. In interviews she has spoken about how as a very young girl she was in a swimming pool when her young cousin tragically drowned and how that brought on a deep anxiety in her. She couldn’t face being in a classroom, she needed her mother there. She has continued to be open about nerves, crying, mental health, anxiety and to express gratitude for her family, her friends, her teammates (most of whom are Hindus) and for her Christian faith for the support and help they have given her. The first words in her post match interview after her match-winning 127 were a thank you to Jesus and the next were to thank her family. Another mindset she mentions is her concern to bat not for herself, but for the team. “I wanted to see a win for India, not something about myself.” She has also referenced a conversation with the above-mentioned legend of the Indian game Sachin Tendulkar who asked her about playing international cricket: “Are you nervous?” “Yes” was Jemimah’s immediate, honest reply, to which Tendulkar said “You are nervous because that means you care about doing well. So just go out and do your best”.

Jemimah Rodrigues has shown an honesty, a concern for others, for the team not herself, and an openness. “I will be vulnerable because I know if someone is watching they might be going through the same thing. That’s my whole purpose in saying it. I was going through a lot of anxiety at the start of the World Cup tournament.” And yes she does get trolls on her social media, but she will continue to be herself as God wants her to be. “When I am weak, then I am strong” writes Saint Paul to the Christians in Corinth giving him a hard time, and “I will keep on doing what I am doing”.

Here’s to more great innings from Jemimah Rodrigues (though she knows God’s love for her does not depend on her cricketing performances), and to more opportunities for girls as well as boys to use and enjoy their sporting gifts. And may Archbishop Sarah, as well as having in common with Jemimah a Christian faith and a story of opening up opportunities, share that aim of honesty and openness and may she know great victories along the way, not for herself but for the worldwide team of God’s Church.

Article

Culture

Purpose

Work

8 August 2025

4 min read

The secret to finding your perfect job is to ignore the influencers

There’s too much vocational shame on LinkedIn

Thomas Sharpe

Thomas is a writer exploring the intersection of faith, politics, and social justice.

Apply now.

“If you’re looking for a job, here’s something that I think will change your life”.

This is not the first time my social media has targeted me with an advert selling a better job, a higher paying role, a more fulfilling career, a more purposeful company. This is a new iteration of a long train of ‘Cinderella’ job advertisements I’ve received, promising that I will find the slipper if I just give away a bit more of my contentment and attention. If you’ve clicked on this article, I imagine you might be in the same boat.

The hustle influencers tell me that I could find a job with higher earnings and greater financial freedom. They say that I should be an entrepreneur, that working in a standard job is like existing as a subordinate in a dystopian novel. They ask me, “Why are you not a millionaire yet?” They can teach me if I just sign up to their free course.

The effective altruism influencers tell me that I need to find a job with purpose. I must change the world with every minute of my working day, or my work at best, isn’t worth doing, and, at worst, is actively harmful. I need to be an effective altruist, not just with my money, but with my vocation. They can teach me if I just attend their conference.

I’m sure there is plenty of good in both of these camps.

Entrepreneurship takes our creative human instincts and crafts them into endeavours that can drive economies, create jobs, and aid human flourishing. It releases actual potential in ways that 9-5 roles are often unable to do.

Purposeful work enables us to spend our 80,000 hours at work solving problems that matter. It can ignite our passion for work and facilitate the best minds focusing on the most complex issues.

However, as these career marketers point young people towards the professional promised land, they inadvertently create a malaise of discontent at work. Out of this, I frequently find myself questioning whether I’m doing the right job. When people ask me about my work, I’ll respond hesitantly, unable to hide this small sense of vocational shame I carry. I actually quite like my job. But no, I’m not an entrepreneur. And no, I haven’t found the most purposeful work I could find.

Every so often, this discontentment reaches boiling point, and I spend hours scrolling through LinkedIn, researching Masters, or thinking about small businesses I could start. Unsurprisingly, this compounds the discontentment as the Cinderella job I’m looking for remains tantalisingly elusive.

Social media has exacerbated this problem. Influencers trade on attention, and young people’s professional discontentment generates plenty of that commodity to trade in. Worse than that, it’s a market with easily generatable new leads – I’ve found that all it takes are a few 30-second videos about “the career you wish you had”. Surely this is part of the reason why “91% of millennials say they expect to change jobs every three years, and the average tenure for workers between the ages of 25 and 34 is 2.8 years”, according to Zippia, a careers site.

I sometimes need reminding that I just need to look; to look at the friendships I have with my colleagues; to look at the interesting problems I get to work on.

This discontentment is not a new feeling, and I’ve appreciated the following parable from the Jesuit priest Anthony De Mello as I’ve wrestled with discontentment about work. It’s called "The Little Fish."

"Excuse me," said an ocean fish. "You are older than I, so can you tell me where to find this thing they call the ocean?"

"The ocean," said the older fish, "is the thing you are in now."

"Oh, this? But this is water. What I'm seeking is the ocean," said the disappointed fish as he swam away to search elsewhere.

"Stop searching, little fish," says De Mello. “There isn't anything to look for. All you have to do is look."

Like the ocean fish, I sometimes need reminding that I just need to look; to look at the friendships I have with my colleagues; to look at the interesting problems I get to work on; to look at the privilege of having a job in the first place; to look at the beauty in the small things, like a good cup of tea to start the work day.

There are certainly times when searching for a career change is the right thing, but De Mello reminds me that in always searching for the next thing, I could easily miss ocean of opportunities right in front of me.

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