CHENNAI: It’s one of the easiest pop quiz questions that was ever asked. Who has scored the most runs in ODI cricket. Sachin Tendulkar, the kid sitting next to you might scream, as he would for most questions about batting records. Ask him about women’s ODI cricket though and chances are you’ll be met with silence. But then, that’s the golden rule of women’s cricket. Don’t compare.
Mithali Raj chose to compare once. Right before the World Cup a journalist asked her who her favourite men’s cricketer was. She stared a hole in him before putting him down. “I have always been asked who’s your favourite men’s cricketer,” she had said then. “Maybe you should ask them who their favourite female cricketer is.”
It was justifiable that she would find the question insulting, for she has been the face of Indian women’s cricket for more than a decade-and-a-half. At 19, she rewrote the world record for the highest individual score in women’s Test cricket, her 214 now second in the table to Kiran Baluch’s 242. She has now been to five World Cups, only one less than what Sachin Tendulkar has done. No one has more ODI fifties than her.
Perhaps most significantly, Mithali has fulfilled every expectation that was placed on her young shoulders when she first burst onto the scene as a teenager. For it was apparent, right from the start that she was special. “All her early coaches used to come and tell me that of all the girls they had, she was the only one who looked like a cricketer,” her father Dorai Raj remembers. “She had an astonishing grip for a ten-year-old,” is how Jyothi Prasad, one of her first coaches, remembers her.
Though she had unconditional support from her parents, hers was not a path without thorns. “Her coach Sampath Kumar is the reason she is where she is now. He taught her the most important lesson that talent alone wasn’t enough for greatness. But he passed away in an accident just when she had made the national team. That was a blow,” Dorai Raj says.
Mithali though kicked on and arrived with a bang on the international scene, her 214 coming in just her third test. Shubangi Kulkarni, who was the secretary of the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) before the game came under BCCI’s ambit, remembers a young Mithali. “I first saw her in 1999, I think. In 2003, when I became secretary, she was just coming into her prime,” she says. “She has always been very different, very focussed.”
It is a view shared by Sudha Shah, who has played 59 Tests for India. “We always knew she would break many records. She is dedicated and deserves to be on top. Mithali, at 34, is fit enough to lead the team from front and score runs constantly. As long as you work on your fitness and have the enthusiasm for the game, you can reach milestone, irrespective of the age.”
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com