There comes a day in every sports fan’s life when their favorite player decides to leave the game and retire or stop playing due to other reasons. And just like that today is an emotional day for cricket fans. The legendary cricket captain “Mithali Raj” has announced her retirement from International Cricket.
She released a statement on social media on Wednesday, saying: “Thank you for all your love & support over the years! I look forward to my 2nd innings with your blessing and support.”
Mithali Raj became the first WT20I captain in 2006 against England at Derby. She has been playing for over two decades and has been a brilliant bats person. Raj has played 12 Tests, 232 ODIs, and 89 T20Is, and has amassed more than 10,000 runs in international cricket.
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Cricket was Mithali’s father’s dream. FirstPost wrote she played 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. Mithali’s Indian team also created a team record of winning 16 matches on the trot – a streak that began with India defeating Australia during the tour of Australia in February 2016 and ended during the Quadrangular ODI series in South Africa in May 2017.
She has won Padma Shri, Arjuna Award for Cricket, and Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award for Cricket. Winning these awards is a big achievement in itself and being the Cricket Captain for the Indian Women’s team, she has done some amazing work and led the team with significant supervision and leadership. There have been only five women cricketers who have scored a hundred on debut and Mithali is the fourth player after Enid Bakewell, Lynne Thomas, and Reshma Gandhi. She also happens to be the first player to score seven consecutive half-centuries in ODIs. She is the only cricketer who was a captain in two ICC ODI World Cup finals; 2005 and 2017.
The cricketer’s life journey is planned to get covered in her biopic ‘Shabaash Mithu’ which is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language biographical sports drama film directed by Srijit Mukherji and produced by Viacom18 Studios. It stars Tapsee Pannu.
The cricketer’s game journey might have come to an end here but her game is remembered.
