New Delhi: When she was a child, Mithali Raj, the Indian women's cricket team captain, trained in the art of Bharatanatyam, a genteel pastime for a proper young Indian girl. She loved performing and considered a career in dance.But it was her father, a huge cricket fan, who steered her away from a field dominated by women and into another, where she would end up being a pioneer for women.A right-handed batswoman in a somewhat classical mold, Raj, 30, is now one of the most successful female players in contemporary women's cricket. She is one of the world's top-ranked batswomen in One-Day Internationals, and in 2003, Raj received the Arjuna Award, India's highest honor for excellence in sports.Her test match debut was against England in the 2001-02 season at Lucknow. In her third test match against England on 17th August 2002 at Taunton, she scored 214 runs. With this score, she broke the world‘s highest individual Test score of 209 by Karen Rolton. Raj became the highest scoring batswoman in the world at the age of 19. The feat wasn‘t just achieved overnight, but Raj had put in many efforts into being one of the best women cricketers. She was born on 03rd December 1982 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan to a Tamil couple Leela Raj and Dorai Raj, an Indian Air Force officer. Interested in the game from her childhood, she started playing at the tender age of 10. A legend in women‘s cricket, Raj was taken ill with typhoid in 2002 Women‘s World Cup, which affected India Women‘s victory chances a great deal. Nonetheless, her team managed to reach the finals of 2005 Women‘s World Cup in South Africa. In the semifinals, Raj scored 91 Not Out and India Women won by 40 runs against New Zealand, but lost in the finals due to the team‘s poor performance against Australia Women, who won by 98 runs. In 2006, Raj‘s talent with the bat as well as her leg-spin bowling capabilities gave India an edge over Sri Lanka and the team won the Asia Cup. Throughout the tournament, India Women didn‘t lose a single game. She also led the team to their first ever test series win in England the same year. Though her record of world‘s highest individual score was surpassed in 2004 by Pakistan‘s Kiran Baluch who scored 242 against West Indies, Raj is still holds the position of No 1 ODI batswoman in the world. She has scored more than 4,000 runs in ODIs and her ODI batting average is 48.29 while her Test match batting average is 52.00. Mithali Raj scored 91 Not Out of 104 deliveries (including 9 fours) during the 2005 Women‘s World Cup against New Zealand, which was the record for the highest individual score by an Indian Woman Cricketer in a World Cup match. The record was broken in 2013 Harmanpreet Kaur who scored 107 runs of 109 deliveries in the second match of 2013 Women‘s World Cup against England. Other than being one of the greatest batswomen of all times, Raj is also a right arm leg break bowler and has claimed 8 wickets in her ODI career. Her economy rate in test matches is 2.66 and in ODIs is 3.19. With 767 ratings points, she tops the batting table at present. For her excellence in the game backed by a consistent performance, she received the Arjuna Award by the government of India in 2003.
