International Women’s Cricket is the flavour of the month, courtesy of ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, 2022. Although the journey for the Indian team has been a mixed one, as of yet, it gives us a great opportunity to reflect on some lesser-known facts about the Indian Women’s Cricket Team.
Indian skipper Mithali Raj holds the record of being the highest run-getter in the limited-overs format. The veteran has scored more than 7,500 runs in ODI cricket.
The 39-year old Mithali has been playing for over two decades. She also holds the record of being the youngest woman batter to score a century. She scored a century in her debut match at the age of 16. She holds the record of scoring the most number of the fifties in women’s ODIs (69).
Mithali Raj has scored six centuries in One Day Internationals, and all of them have come in the winning cause. Mithali has been India’s captain for a while now, and she has a positive record as well. With a win percentage of 63%, Mithali Raj is one of the most successful women’s captains ever.
Young Indian talent Jemimah Rodrigues finished as the second-highest run-getter in the inaugural edition of ‘The Hundred’. Jemimah was on her way to becoming the leading run-getters, however, due to some safety concerns, she had to return to India.
Jhulan Goswami is another pillar in the Indian setup, with several records to her name. With 68 catches, Goswami is only second to Bates, in the most number of catches by a woman cricketer.
More importantly, in the recent group stage game against England, Jhulan Goswami became the first bowler in Women’s cricket to take 250 wickets in the ODI format of the game.
The duo of Deepti Sharma and Punam Raut holds the record of the highest partnership for any wicket in women’s ODIs. The duo scored a mammoth 320 run partnership in 2017. They broke the record which was earlier held by an Indian batting duo – Mithali Raj and Reshma Gandhi (258* runs, 1999)
Indian women’s cricket team is still in search of their first ICC trophy. The team got close in the last ICC ODI and T20 world cups, wherein they made it to the finals but could not end up being on the winning side. With a formidable challenge in Australia, in the next game, it will be expected from the experienced players to fill in the shoes and get India through to the semis,
