FORMER Indian women’s team captain and cricketing icon Jhulan Goswami, who retired in September last year, was felicitated by the Vidarbha Cricket Association at a small function held at the VCA Academy in Civil Lines on Tuesday.

Jhulan, who holds the world record for most wickets in women’s ODIs (255) in 204 matches (also a record) during a career spanning over 20 years, was presented a silver salver by VCA President Justice (Retd) Vinay Deshpande for her sterling performances for Team India.

Sanjay Badkas, Secretary, VCA presented a bouquet of flowers to welcome the Padma Shri Awardee to the function.

Jhulan held an interactive session with scores of players, mostly from VCA’s Under-15 and U-19 girls teams. The 2007 ICC Woman Player of the Year, shared her wealth of experience with the youngsters, urging them to work hard and focus on achieving higher goals.

“Practice and train hard in the nets so that your confidence is up when you play any match. Just focus on your skills and try to execute them. The more I practised, the better I got,” Jhulan said. Jhulan is in Nagpur with the Bengal senior women’s team which is taking part in the national one-day trophy. She has a mentoring role with her state team.