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Mithali Raj Life and encouraging story from a growing dancer to Indian women cricketer.

Many of you previously read the triumph story of Mithali Raj, who promptly established a world record by becoming the second player to score 10,000 runs in the history of women’s ODI.

Here is a sketch of Mithali Raj and achievement of her entrepreneurial and professional progress. Her way to glory was never smooth.

Mithali Dorai Raj was born 3rd December 1982. At 16, she opened with an ODI century that set herself up as the foundation for Indian batting in the generations to show; Raj is not only the richest scorer in the women’s cricket but has showed extraordinary flexibility by being its most completed player as well. She has twice captained India within capturing distance of the ODI World Cup in 2005 and 2017.

She is the biggest run-scorer in women’s international cricket and the only female cricketer to outperform the 7,000 run mark in Women’s One-Day International matches. She is the initial player to record seven consecutive 50s in ODIs. Mithali Raj also carries the record for most half-centuries in Women’s One-Day International matches. In June 2018, during the 2018 Women’s Twenty20 Asia Cup, she turned into the first player from India (either male or female) to record 2000 runs in T20Is, and also turned into the first woman cricketer to reach 2002 WT20I runs.

In 2005, she turned into the captain of the team. Raj is the particular player (female) to have taken care of or captained India in over one ICC ODI World Cup final, doing so twice in 2005 and 2017. On 1 February 2019, during India’s series against New Zealand Women, Raj turned into the first woman to play in 200 ODI matches. In September 2019, she publicized her retirement from T20Is to fixate on ODI cricket. In 2019; she turned into the first woman to spend 20 years in international cricket.

Early life

Mithali was born on 3 December 1982 in a Tamil family in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Her dad is Dorai Raj, who was an Airman (Warrant Officer) in the Indian Air Force, and mom is Leela Raj. Mithali was keen on becoming a Bharatnatyam dancer as well as she started playing the game at 10. She lived her most of the childhood time in Hyderabad, Telangana. She attended Keyes High School for Girls in Hyderabad. She attended Kasturba Gandhi Junior College for Women in Secunderabad for her intermediate studies. She started cricket training in her school times, along with her elder brother.

Youth and career

She used to play for Railways in the domestic tournaments, Raj began by participating with stars like Purnima Rau, Anju Jain and Anjum Chopra for Air India.

She showed her decent performance in both ODI and test for Indian Women’s Cricket Team. When she was just 14, she was named among the feasible in 1997 women’s cricket world cup, but could not make it in final squad.

Her very first ODI match, she played was against Ireland and she scored 114 runs. In 2001-02, she appeared playing test against South Africa at Lucknow.

At 19, on 17th August 2002, she smashed the record of Karen Rolton of world’s highest individual test record of 209* by scoring 214 runs.

In 2005, she brought the team to their first world cup final in South Africa.

She showed the side to their initial test and service victory in England draped up the year winning the Asia Cup in August 2006, the second time in 12-months without slipping a single game.

In 2005, Raj led the squad to Women’s Cricket World Cup, where they suffered loss to Australia. She is a part time leg-break bowler as well.

She is recipient of Arjuna award for the year 2003. Currently, she tops the batting table with the rating 703.

She became very dangerous when on the crease as cricketer. Besides batting, she is a leg-spinner and providing variety to attack.

Raj was the no.1 cricketer at 2013 women’s world cup in ODI chart among women. She scored 1-100s & 4-50s in test cricket and 5-100s, 50-50s and in bowling her best was ¾ in ODIs.

Even she made 10-50s in T20s. She became the second player to score 5,500 runs in WODIs in February 2017.

She is the first player to captain most matches for India in T20s and ODIs. She became the first player to score 6,000 runs in WODIs in July 2017.

She led Indian team to the Women’s Cricket World Cup 2017, where the team lost to England by nine runs.

She was named as one of the players in ICC Women’s ODI Team of the Year in December 2017.

She was named in India’s squad for the 2018 ICC World Cup Twenty20 in West Indies.

Cricket Records:

She held the record for the highest individual score by an Indian Women's Cricketer in the world Cup match.

They are 91 not out of 104 deliveries, which included 9-fours against New Zealand in the Women’s World Cup 2005.

In 2013 ICC Women’s World Cup’s second match against England, Harmanpreet Kaur overtook her by scoring a century and that was 107 runs from 190 balls.

We know Mithali Raj as “Lady Tendulkar of Indian Women’s Cricket” Because currently she is the all-time leading run-scorer for India in all formats like tests, ODI & T20s.

She scored her seventh half century during 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup & made a record for most consecutive fifties by a player.

She is the consecutive player in Women’s One-Day International for a team. She is the 1st Indian and 5th cricketer to score over 1,000 in World Cup.

She has retired from T20 cricket in September 2019. She dreams to bring the World Cup to India by 2021.

In a BCCI press statement she said,” After representing India in T20 internationals since 2006, I wish to retire from T20Is to focus my energies on readying myself for the 2021 one-day World Cup.”

Coaching career:

For Indian Women’s National Cricket Team, she was appointed as batting consultant. She had played as a player and coach the team as well. The Government of India awarded Mithali the Arjuna Award for outstanding achievement in sports in 2003.

PM Modi congratulated Mithali Raj for her record feat of making 10,000 runs in international cricket, he also hailed PV Sindhu for the Silver Medal in the BWF Swiss Open Super 300 Tournament.