Dubai: India’s women’s team captain Mithali Raj has done in One day Internationals what Sunil Gavaskar did first in men’s Test cricket. She has become the leading runscorer in ODI cricket and first to cross the 6000-run mark, much like the way Gavaskar did years ago in Test cricket and inspired a generation of greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli.
With Indian pacer Jhulan Goswami too at the top of leading bowlers in ODI, never has women’s cricket looked so good.
Whether India go on to win the World Cup or make an exit before the semi-final (they face a must-win game against New Zealand on Saturday), the exploits of these two players will go a long way in boosting the image of women’s cricket in India.
Mithali, with 6,028 runs, went past England’s Charlotte Edwards tally of 5,992 runs on July 12, 2017 World Cup match against Australia. She took 16 innings less to cross Edwards’ tally and with an average of 51.52 is the player with the highest batting average among women.
Mithali’s journey to the top by fighting all odds was indeed spectacular. Like most all young girls from south India, her first love was dance. She was trained to become a Bharatnatyam dancer when she fell in love with cricket. Incidentally, her father Dora Raj, who was with the Indian Air Force and later went on to become a bank employee, wanted Mithali to wake up early and thus coaxed her to go along with her brother for cricket coaching. At the camp, she met former Hyderabad pacer Jyothi Prasad who introduced her to NIS coach Sampath Kumar. This is how Mithali learnt the basics of the game.
Mithali impressed coach Kumar with her hard work and within a short while the coach announced that she will soon play for India. At the age of just 14, she was named among the probables for the 1997 Women’s World Cup squad and at the age of 16 she made her One Day International debut in 1999 against Ireland at Milton Keynes and cracked an unbeaten 114.
The journey began and Mithali kept on breaking records with ease. After making her Test debut in 2001-02 against South Africa at Lucknow at the age of 19, she shattered Australian Karen Rolton’s record of world’s highest individual Test score of 209 by hitting 214 runs. The fact that she scored those runs against formidable England at Taunton lifted her confidence.
Mithali became the symbol of consistency and now holds the record for most half-centuries in a row in ODIs when she cracked seven fifties. She also worked hard on her bowling and became a leg spinner.
In 2005, she led India to the World Cup final in South Africa but lost to the formidable Australia.
The ‘Tendulkar of women’s cricket’ as she is fondly addressed, Mithali has lived up to the sobriquet. Like Tendulkar ended his long wait for the World Cup in 2011, it will be fascinating if the articulate Mithali can emulate him in England this time.
