END OF AN ERA
Raj announced her decision on social media © BCCI
Veteran India batter Mithali Raj has called time on her international career. She made the announcement through a statement on social media.
Having started playing for India in 1999 as a 16-year old, Mithali grew to become one of the all-time greats of the game. She represented India in 12 Tests, 232 ODIs and 89 T20Is in all, 195 of them as captain. She also led the team to the finals of two World Cups.
In ODIs, after starting off with a hundred on debut in 1999, she finishes as the highest run-scorer, a tally of 7805 runs with seven hundreds and 64 fifties in all. The last of her fifties came in her final outing for India, against South Africa in the World Cup in March when India were knocked out.
In Women’s Tests, she is India’s only double centurion, with her 214 against England in 2002 also being the second-highest individual score in the game.
The T20I format also saw her embroiled in a controversy in the latter part of her career when she was excluded from the eleven during the 2018 T20 World Cup. This was followed by a war of words with Mithali going up against the then-coach Ramesh Powar and captain Harmanpreet Kaur. She called time on her T20I career in 2019, and is still India’s highest run-getter in the format.
Mithali has been widely recognised for her contributions to the game in India and has received several civilian awards including the Arjuna award, the Padma Shri and most recently the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2021.
Source: Cricbuzz