Indian cricket's Mithali Raj era comes to an end
She has helped establish the base upon which Indian cricket can now reach for great heights and it is only fair that we acknowledge her as one of the greatest cricketers India has ever produced.
We all knew it was coming but it wasn't until 2.06 pm on Wednesday that Mithali Raj made her retirement from the game official. Her statement, put out on Twitter, brought the curtain down on a storied career that saw her take Indian women's cricket from the depths of obscurity to an era where it is starting to regularly challenge for the big trophies.
Raj, 39, wrote, "I feel now is the perfect time to call curtains on my playing career as the team is in the capable hands of some very talented young players and the future of Indian Cricket is bright."
She went on to add that she would stay connected with the game. "Each time I stepped on the field, I gave my very best with the intent to help India win. I will always cherish the opportunity given to me to represent the tricolour," she wrote. "It was an honour to have led the team for so many years. It definitely shaped me as a person & hopefully helped shape Indian Women's Cricket as well.
"This journey may have ended but another one beckons as I'd love to stay involved in the game I love and contribute to the growth of Women's Cricket in India and world over."
Raj's greatest strength was to just be able to bat regardless of what was happening around her. India's wasn't always the strongest batting unit and it perhaps still isn't but the right-hander would often become the glue holding the innings together. She would often do it by employing an almost perfect technique. Power wasn't her forte but her feet and hands would almost find a way to be in the right place. It all fit. It seemed effortless but it was clearly the fruit of a relentless drill that made her who she is.
She burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old on June 26, 1999, when she scored an unbeaten 114 on international debut. It then made her the youngest centurion in women's cricket across all formats.
That was just the beginning. Her consistency and longevity ensured that Indian women's cricket to many meant Mithali Raj. She broke records, established new ones and generally found a way to force people to pay attention. In an era when people didn't exactly rate the quality of women's cricket very highly, she proved them wrong through her deeds.
She was the ever-present force, the world-class act holding India up when the need arose, the one giving the younger batters an idol to follow. She was the reality and the dream. Raj played 12 Tests (a reflection of not her class but rather how the format was ignored by India), 232 ODIs and 89 T20Is and her last match for India came during the 50-over World Cup earlier this year.
Her career had been in wind-down mode for a while. In T20s, she hardly played after the emergence of younger stars who were more in tune with the format. Tests are a rare event in the women's game anyway and that left her with just ODIs. At 39, she didn't want to wait four years for another crack at the World Cup.
With her as skipper, India reached the final of two ODI World Cups but the trophy eluded her. In the first final (2005), Australia crushed India by 98 runs. In the second (2017), India ran England close, losing a thriller by 9 runs. The two matches, 12 years apart, showed how Indian cricket has grown and by 2017, the country had started to take note as well.
Raj's overall tally of 10,868 runs makes her the leading run-scorer in women's international cricket, and perhaps, only now, with her walking into the sunset will many realise what she truly meant to Indian cricket. She has helped establish the base upon which Indian cricket can now reach for great heights and it is only fair that we acknowledge her as one of the greatest cricketers India has ever produced. Not one of the greatest women cricketers but one of the greatest cricketers, period.