Raj era in cricket ends
As time marches on, it’s inevitable that cricketers will rest their favourite willow and hang up their boots. But rarely would that signify the end of an era as it does in the case of the eminent batter Mithali Raj. She was a dominant figure in Indian women’s cricket for more than two decades whose longevity and productivity — first Indian woman cricketer to make 10,000 international runs — was Tendulkar-like.
They are not called batswomen anymore — they are batters, a term invented for gender neutrality, but which also signifies how much women’s cricket has come on in the public eye. Mithali was one of those who contributed to the rise of the game, not only in making tons of runs but also in terms of upholding the game’s traditional values in technique and game skills, besides demeanour and attitude.
When Mithali’s career began towards the end of the 1990s, women’s cricket was for dedicated amateurs. It may have taken a while for it to sink into public consciousness that it’s a game that could be played elegantly by the ladies too. Cricket history has it that, because of the billowing skirts they wore in those early days, women invented side arm bowling, which then evolved into the overarm. As formats were added and rose in popularity, Mithali adapted her technical soundness and measured run gathering mode to the shorter game but not without whispers about her T20 strike rate that led to her being dropped, acrimoniously. She stayed the course with dignity, as Test and ODI captain as well as a loyal soldier of the game.
After retirement, Mithali’s intention is to serve the game and she may be open to mentoring roles that might sit well with her deep experience of cricket. Indian women in cricket are an aspirational lot and they were led to the ODI World Cup summit twice by Mithali, only for the team to fall just a bit short. If the women do break through one day in the future with a young team flowering, they would owe a debt of gratitude to the likes of Mithali who did so much towards changing cricket from a hobby to a passion.