BENGALURU:Thrilled about having qualified for World Cup 2017, Mithali Raj is apprehensive about playing without batswoman Smrithi Mandhana and all-rounder Jhulan Goswami.
City Express caught up with the captain of Indian women’s cricket team in Tests and ODI who is all praise for the youngsters who have joined the team. “They’re quite confident after winning the match against South Africa,” she said.
Commenting on the current status of the women’s cricket in India, she said that a lot has been happening over the years. With the introduction of central contract for women in 2015, ex-women cricketers will enjoy one-time benefits, which their male counterparts had acquired 11 years earlier. She also said that women have much more access to stadium facilities and are well taken care of by BCCI, unlike during her early days in the late 90’s.
She said,“This helps women take up cricket as a career and offers them job security as well. Even if a person is passionate about a sport, he or she might lose that without such benefits. These recent changes have helped keep our passion alive.”
When asked about retirement plans, Mithali said that she has a lot more to offer to the Indian team and wishes to boost the team’s ranking. After 2013, the team’s performances had diminished and Mithali hopes to see India rise again to the top three teams. She will be captaining the Indian Women’s Cricket team in her fifth World Cup Tournament, which is scheduled to begin in June.
Not only in India, but across the world, women’s cricket match continues to be held after long intervals, she said. There is often a gap of two to three months between each series. Mithali said that this makes it very difficult for women players to get used to maintaining momentum and even getting used to dressing room situations.
However, as the team inches closer to the World Cup, back-to-back tournaments are held and this helps them maintain their form, she added.
Mithali was a teenager when she made her debut in 1999. She confessed that she never entered this field by choice. “I was and still am a very lazy person. My parents sent me to play cricket so that I’d wake up early everyday,” she said. Mithali also added that besides cricket, she had trained in Bharatanatyam for eight years.
People used to mistake her for a hockey player. Things have changed, she said. “Now a lot of people recognise our faces... They even comment on a few games they’ve watched,” she said.
Her strongest inspiration to pursue this sport comes from cricketers of 80’s and 90’s who pursued the sport without encouragement and monetary benefit and women who left their hometowns and moved to cities to make it big in cricket.
Ranked at number two in Women’s ICC ODI ranking, the cricketer was recently in the city at a Shoppers Stop’s event, where she unveiled the world’s largest cricket bat.