India women’s team skipper Mithali Raj scripted history against Australia as she becomes leading run-scorer in women's ODIs going past England’s Charlotte Edwards in the batting list. Edwards record of 5992 runs was the previous highest career aggregate in Women ODIs. Mithali Raj has gone past Edwards' tally in 16 fewer innings and her average of 51.37* is significantly higher than Edwards' 38.16.
Playing their sixth group match of the ICC Women's World Cup 2017, Australian skipper Meg Lanning invited the women in blue to bat first at Bristol on Wednesday. After losing opener Smriti Mandhana early, captain Mithali joined Punam Raut at the crease.
Before this innings against Australia, Mithali was 34 runs short of surpassing former England batter record for most runs in women's ODI cricket.
With this knock, Mithali also becomes the first woman cricketer to amass 6,000 ODI runs. Reaching such a milestone speaks a lot about the talent and skill of this veteran Indian batswoman who has been the lynchpin of Indian batting unit since her debut in 1999.
On her ODI debut against Ireland in 1999, the Jodhpur-born batter scored a scintillating hundred to register her name among the elite list of players who have recorded the similar feat. However, Mithali still holds the record of being the youngest centurion in the history of women's ODI cricket. No other player has scored a century in the format before turning 17.
Her knock of 214 against England at Taunton in a Test match was the highest ever individual Test score until Pakistan's Kiran Baluch in slammed 242 against West Indies in 2004.
During her 18-year-long ODI career, this superwoman has etched her name on several records. She also led the Indian team to the finals of the ICC Women's World Cup in 2005, where India lost against Australia.
Recently, she became the first batswoman to score seven consecutive ODI fifties which is a world record. She has also twice registered four consecutive 50-plus scores, in 2006 and 2010.
