When as a 16-year-old, Raj made a century against Ireland in what would be her India debut, she probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, have imagined she would be leaving a very different game
File image of Mithali Raj. AFP
For over two decades, Mithali Raj was a brilliant batter who carried the burden of her team, the sport and its future.
Mithali Raj didn’t set out to be a cricketer. As a young girl, she just wanted to sleep in. And maybe get decked up and do Bharatanatyam dance. Cricket was her father’s dream. She played, she said, out of a sense of loyalty and duty. But so prodigious was her early talent that cricket became her destiny – one whose blessing and burden she carried with trademark grace for over two decades.
Raj didn’t set out to be a changemaker either. She didn’t aim to be an inspiration for generations of cricketers or a face who graces the cover of Vogue magazine. Give her a book and a quiet corner any day. Once upon a time, she used to be too shy to even raise her bat after a century; there was, after all, the next match, the next training session to get ready for.
Much of her career unfolded away from television screens, in relative anonymity, in press conference rooms with an audience of two at best. Even if there had been cameras trained on her, she would have given them little. She’s no fist-pumping, potty-mouthed, leaping-in-the-air firebrand that the cameras these days so love to linger on. But she always made time to share her thoughtful, well-considered and articulate opinions that spoke to girls in sport and urged others to support them.
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When as a 16-year-old, Raj made a century against Ireland in what would be her India debut, she probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, have imagined she would be leaving a very different game. But here she is, hanging up her boots at the international level at the age of 39, finishing both as a batting legend and a social icon. And she has a biopic on the way.
Today, India’s women cricketers are now relatively well recognised and well paid and have more opportunities than ever before. They are professional. Jerseys now fit – and if you’ve seen those old photos of a slight Raj swimming in oversized blues, you know that’s saying a lot.
And in these 23 years at the highest level, whether intentional or not, Raj has had a big role to play in bringing the sport to this point in good health. Along with her colleague Jhulan Goswami, Raj has stood as a pillar on which the very edifice of women’s cricket in India has been propped up through periods of administrative transition, and cycles of success and neglect.
All this while breaking records and making 10,868 international runs, more than anyone else in the women’s game.
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The original legend of Mithali Raj begins with a cover drive. Few sights in cricket are as pleasing. She’s in her floppy hat, her touch is light, her wrists are languid, and the ball splices the fielders who are there for the very reason to stop it. Between these shots, generations of bowlers have tried to rattle her, but she remains unperturbed. She trusts her defence and she trusts her skill to make up the runs later in her innings.
Her textbook technique has given her an ODI average of 50.68; only two women who have played more than 30 matches have a better average. And it’s won India matches over and over again: her average rises to 70.50 in matches where India have won.
Indeed, India have much to thank Raj the batter for, and can take pride in being home to a veritable great. But these numbers and her consistency have also been a burden – a question on her own greatness and a crutch upon which the Indian batting stood for much too long.
For all her records, Raj has only seven hundreds as against 64 ODI fifties. As she’s argued before, she might have been a different player if those around her batted differently and if India had more batting depth. The semi-final knock against New Zealand in the 2005 World Cup, where she batted through pain with an injured knee, and the Test double-century in Taunton in 2002 where she needed an impromptu rock salt and hot water bath for her tired, aching limbs, were only two of a series of rescue acts for the country. What might her numbers have looked like if she had more support? Could India have even turned one of their two runners-up medals into a World Cup trophy?
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In the last few years, Raj’s numbers and performances have been as consistent, but her style has come in for criticism as being out of date in a changing game. Her strike-rate has been a constant talking point. And where once girls said they wanted to bat like Mithali, they are now enamoured of the six-hitting of Harmanpreet Kaur and Shafali Verma.
Given this, her retirement seems timely. Raj has been around for the turn of the millennium, for the cash-rich BCCI to take over from the erstwhile Women’s Cricket Association of India, for full-time contracts to finally be implemented, for most women’s internationals to be on prime-time television, for women she’s captained to become her coaches and selectors – she’s ridden all the changes. But the pace of change over the last couple of years may finally have been too much, even for her.
There remains one big “what if” in Raj’s career. What if there was a women’s IPL and she played it? After much delay, the tournament is closer to reality than it has ever been, set to take off in 2023. Raj, having restricted her retirement to the international arena, seems to have left the door open on the domestic front. Will this trailblazer of women’s cricket and former Bharatanatyam aficionado have one final dance left?
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