Shabaash Mithali for upstaging Tendulkar

The long-serving Indian captain and an icon of the game Mithali Raj has announced her retirement from international cricket. She drew curtains on a 23-year-long international career as the highest run-getter in ODIs (7,805 in 232 innings at an average of 50.68). 

In Tests, she represented India in 12 matches, scoring 699 runs, and also played 89 T20Is. The champion has also scored a double-century in the longest format of the game. 

Overall, the legend has led India in 195 matches. Let this sink in: The total length of Raj’s ODI career is the longest career span for a player in ODIs, among both men and women. You might need to read this again. Her career span is longer than that of the great Sachin Tendulkar (22 years, 91 days) The most prolific batter in women’s cricket played six 50-over World Cups and led the country to two World Cup finals, in 2005 and 2017. She is the only woman, and only the third cricketer ever, to appear in six 50-over World Cups. She is the most capped player and highest runscorer in the history of women’s cricket. Mithali once revealed that she had never wanted to play cricket. 

Her journey began in Secunderabad, where the budding Bharatnatyam dancer switched to the sport with the help of a coach who replaced cricket balls with stones, flinging them at her in practice, and a strict father who set high standards. Had this not happened, we wouldn’t have seen this gem. She became the hope for many. Several girls picked up a cricket bat only after watching her play.

 They wanted to play shots like her, to lead from the front like her. They wanted to emulate her in every way possible. Having started playing for the country in 1999 as a 16-year-old, she grew to become one of the all-time greats of the game. To represent India is indeed a big feat. To continue for almost 23 years speaks volumes about her stellar career. It’s not like going on and on for 22 years, 274 days to be precise may have been a cakewalk for the player of that standard. 

To maintain physical fitness and mental strength required to perform well at the highest level, demands character. She mastered the art by keeping at bay all else in life. She raised the profile of women’s cricket during a crucial period of its growth. 

Indian women’s cricket does have other stars: Jhulan Goswami, who’s also at the fag-end of her career, the end of which we will hear from her sooner than later. And of course, Neetu David, Shubhangi Kulkarni and Anjum Chopra among many others, but Mithali was inordinately special. 

It will be great if she takes up an administrative role in the BCCI after hanging up her playing boots. Aware as she very well may be of the good and bad in the system, she could use the experience to give women’s cricket more stars like herself.