Mithali Raj, a veteran of the Indian women’s cricket team, achieved a career benchmark on Friday, becoming the first Indian woman and the second overall to score 10,000 international runs. Mithali crossed the landmark when she crossed the 35-run mark in India vs. South Africa at the third ODI in Lucknow on Friday. Mithali created history as the third women’s ODI IND-South African game, with 10,001 games in 311 games since her debut in 1999.
Charlotte Edwards of England was the first woman to achieve the feat in international cricket. Mithali currently requires 299 runs to overtake the Englishwoman as the all-time leading run scorer in women’s international cricket history.
Mithali, on the other hand, was unable to toast the occasion in style, as the batter was struck out after adding another run to her 36-run inning. Mithali is also the top run-scorer in ODIs, with 6974 runs after the innings, and is just 36 runs away from becoming the first player to cross 7000 runs in the format. Aside from that, she has 2364 runs in T20 cricket and 634 runs in 10 Test matches to her credit.
She put up a 77-run partnership with Punam Raut for the third wicket after India were reduced to 64/2 after being sent in to bat first by the Proteas.
India were consolidating on the Raut-Mithali stand with 160/3 in the 34th over at the time of writing this paper. Raut, who was not out on 77 runs (off 107 balls) with Harmanpreet Kaur (4 not out) at the other end, was also getting closer to her century.
India were consolidating on the Raut-Mithali stand with 160/3 in the 34th over at the time of writing this paper. Raut, who was not out on 77 runs (off 107 balls) with Harmanpreet Kaur (4 not out) at the other end, was also getting closer to her century.
Aside from that, Mithali is the only Indian captain to have led her team to two ODI World Cup finals, whether male or female. She retired from T20I cricket in 2019 to concentrate her efforts on 50-over cricket, as winning an ODI World Cup remains her ambition.
