Jemimah Rodrigues found her groove the moment she stopped chasing it.

For most of WPL 2026, one could sense the effort as a batter and as a captain. Almost like an earnest attempt to fix something. To, perhaps, fix Delhi Capitals' reputation through the stutter of the first-half.

Rodrigues herself admitted later that she was trying too hard as a batter too. Chasing form, chasing T20 rhythm, chasing fluency that comes naturally to her. She practiced relentlessly, wanting it so bad that it kept drifting further away. "Like the butterfly?," she said.

Then somewhere before a must-win game, she let go. Not in a careless way, but by backing her instincts and trusting her processes. She "didn't even go to practice", went on a coffee run instead, hit reset, and then showed up just the same.

And just like that, important runs and, crucially, the rhythm returned. The timing of which could not have been more poetic.

Delhi Capitals' Eliminator against Gujarat Giants on Tuesday was loaded with context. The hosts had been DC's tormentors this season, twice shunting their late surge courtesy Sophie Devine's scarcely-believable last-over heroics. Twice the Giants had denied them a smoother route to the finals that DC were accustomed to the previous cycle. In both those matches, Rodrigues had misfired, falling cheaply and untimely instead of leading the way, much to her own disappointment..

Sure enough, en route the Finals week, there was a fifty along the way. The kind that screams back-at-it after a brief lean patch. That trademark ease though was somewhat missing. But when it mattered the most, Rodrigues found her way back to it.

Her 41 off 23 balls in the Eliminator wasn't just brisk, it was authoritative. The right mix of intent and execution that came with clarity of what's needed and how to get there. "Clear heads, cool heads," as Chinelle Henry later put it.

The platform was set. The double-barrel attack from Lizelle Lee and Shafali Verma on GG's new-ball attack had already blown the game open and negated the conditions through the 89-run partnership in just seven overs. But momentum swung sharply when the openers fell on either end of the eighth over to Georgia Wareham. The responsibility shifted abruptly to the middle-order to arrest the slide. Rodrigues arrived, ensuring more than that.

She prides herself on being a touch player and, on a pitch with the occasional unpredictable bounce, Rodrigues tucked in quietly with a run-a-ball 12 before launching. The shift from rotating strike to taking control arrived in the only Ash Gardner over of the night. Rodrigues sunk in on her back knee and with a mighty loft over the mid-off that was inside the ring, deposited her opposite number deep beyond the ropes.

Thereafter, the drive she creamed through covers off Devine, the pre-meditated reverse-lap to throw a returning Wareham off first ball, and the neat cut off the legbreak turning away to pierce the heavily-guarded point region, were all a batting masterclass in calculated aggression. It had all the elements of a knock that announced the arrival of a player on the big stage. Or, in Delhi's case, their captain's.

Rodrigues' purposeful 41 in a 68-run with Laura Wolvaardt ensured DC didn't give the Giants a whiff despite them creating opportunities in quick succession. It wasn't the sole reason, but a pivotal part of amending a few wrongs from the heartbreakingly dramatic finishes of the regular season against the Giants that had no business getting so close.

Unshackled from her own expectations, and those imposed externally, Rodrigues finally succeeded in dictating the tempo. There were signs of this in the game preceding the Eliminator - the one she now credits as the turning point. In a low-scoring chase against UP Warriorz that threatened to spiral dangerously with late wickets, Rodrigues quickly arrested the slide by targeting the spinners, shielding young Niki Prasad. She finished with an 18-ball cameo worth 34 in a virtual knockout that made it all look easy in hindsight. On Tuesday, she raised the bar to put Delhi Capitals in their fourth straight final.

DC are used to grabbing that direct ticket previously, and often with sheer dominance. But this time, the road took a testing detour. In the bargain, they found their captain again.