Jhulan Goswami: 'I want to lift the game, because in India there is a question mark over everything women do'

How has the perception of quick bowlers in women's cricket changed over the last two decades?
I don't think the utility of pace bowlers has diminished, though spinners are having more success than they had in my early years in international cricket. Earlier, in the first half of my career, the pitches used to be ordinary across the world. There was no help for medium-pacers. They were just deflating for any kind of cricket.

That's why our spinners were considered our strength for every home series. If you were a spinner, it was easier to make the Indian team than it was for quicks. That remained the mindset for the longest time, quite similar to Indian men's cricket.

When in your career did you see the trend shift?
Amita Sharma, Rumeli Dhar, and I played as the three front-line seamers in an XI for the best part of a decade. Noosheen [Al Khadeer] and Neetu David would be the two spinners. Sometimes Deepa Kulkarni would play as the third spinner. Rumeli would slot in as the batting allrounder, Amita and I would be the bowlers who could bat.

That was the combination for a long time and [the change] was largely down to the gradual improvement in the quality of wickets for women's cricket, especially after the merging [of the ICC and national boards with their respective women's units].

Now spinners are back again. Players like England's Sophie Ecclestone and Australia's Jess Jonassen have been high on the ICC rankings in recent years.
In the past four-five years, we've seen spin take on a more prominent role than it had in the earlier years [of the decade]. To my mind, that's because the concept of the game has changed, primarily because of T20. The dynamism that spinners bring to an attack is indispensable. T20 has been the primary vehicle for the growth of the women's game in the last ten years or so, and the WBBL's arrival has coincided with this phase. So spin making a comeback is no surprise.

Women's teams are fitter than ever before, and power-hitting is on the rise. Have those factors neutralised some of the threat of quick bowlers, especially since not all teams have express fast bowlers?
I wouldn't agree with that entirely because a good quick bowler or medium-pacer still gets rewarded. Look at, say, [Marizanne] Kapp, [Shabnim] Ismail, [Katherine] Brunt - they are massive assets to their teams, and every opponent thinks highly of them and prepares to face the challenge they pose. But I will admit that you are right that the evolution of power in women's batting has certainly pushed medium-pacers to think smarter, bowl smarter.

Variations are the key. It's not as though spinners don't get hit by batters, but medium-pacers, I feel, have been forced to reimagine their game to make the most of their resources and skills.

Who is the best pace-bowling allrounder you've seen?
Ellyse Perry. Just before her international debut, she came to India as part of a New South Wales squad. Alyssa Healy and Erin Osborne were also in it. We played Perry during a practice game in Mysore, which we lost. I was very impressed with her action - she had a good, high-arm action - and she was quite quick.

Her progress has been phenomenal. She debuted as a bowler but went on to become a genuine allrounder who can bat excellently across formats. It's no joke to be able to do that - high-quality fast bowling opening the innings, and batting Nos. 4 and 5 consistently. Australia have an immense reputation as a cricket-playing nation and in women's cricket obviously they have been the most successful team, so the pressure is even higher. It requires a lot of discipline and good work ethic, otherwise you cannot be that consistent across all formats.

And among Indians?
Matches barely used to be televised back when I started playing, so I have not closely followed any quick bowler before my contemporaries. Among them, Rumeli was easily the best pace- bowling allrounder to date. Her line of attack remained the same all through and she was equally consistent with her batting. She could bat at any position - opening or middle order - and she was reasonably successful too.

Rumeli, I'd say without sounding modest, was more talented than me. I was the quicker of the two but she possessed a higher level of skill than I had as a medium-pacer. I am a seamer, whereas her plus point was outswing and the late swing she would get was terrific. It's a rare skill, even among pacers today. She was very consistent for India.

Why has India struggled to find genuine quick- or medium-pace-bowling allrounders since Dhar?
If you talk about the current pool of India allrounders, Pooja Vastrakar has been batting well. Shikha [Pandey] has also contributed in patches, but it eventually boils down to two things.

The domestic cricket culture needs to change slightly. Things have improved with the BCCI's help, but we could do more. You have to back pacers more and give them more opportunities, on better surfaces, to showcase their skills and hone them. I think pushing them into a corner, where they're forced to consider switching to spin, is not ideal.

The second thing is, the medium-pacers themselves need to do better preparation pre-season.

Quick bowlers switching to spin - though the trend is more pronounced in domestic cricket, a number of internationals, including Shanel Daley of West Indies, England's Laura Marsh and South Africa's Chloe Tryon, switched during your career.
Look, they have all been key performers for their teams. But I believe it's not easy to be a medium-pacer. You need a lot of athleticism, and even if you have that, after a point there is bound to be a lot of wear and tear. So once you reach a certain age, your athleticism will not matter as much as your ability to manage and prevent injuries. Injuries can be really frustrating for fast bowlers.

Until, say, the last six, seven years, we didn't play as many games as we do now. So for a fast bowler to be injured and then spend a lot of time on the bench while her team-mates made the most of whatever few games the team got - it would get very frustrating, doing those monotonous rehab exercises. It's just you, your physio and trainer. So it used to be a doubly isolated world for injured women medium-pacers for the lack of playing opportunities.

After playing consecutive matches within a short period of time, your body is bound to get tired, and not everybody's body is suited to making a quick recovery. When the pace of recovery is not able to keep up with the pace of your expectations, that can mentally bog you down, and as a medium-pacer, you try looking for other options. In women's cricket the choice used to be to either improve your value to the team by becoming a handy batter or to switch to spin, which reduces the stress on your body, which can allow you to extend your career.

Can you recall any memories of waking up on a match day and feeling like your body was at loggerheads with you and your plans?
The ast Test we played in England, after nearly seven years, I was very tense going into that game because I had not bowled long spells for a while. I thought I'd have a lot of soreness after the first day of bowling. But to my surprise, the following morning I was very fresh though I had bowled a lot of overs up to that point. I told myself, "Hmm. Not bad." It was only when we bowled them out and I came back after lunch on day three that I started feeling completely drained. When I removed my shoes and took a shower, the soreness kicked in.

That's the thing with your body: it's just so uncertain how it might react. Sometimes, when you have a two- or three-day gap [between matches] on certain tours, even that is not enough for your body to recuperate, and at other times only a few hours can help you recover and feel fresh and rejuvenated.