Mithali Raj recalls the days she used to travel in unreserved trains and stayed in hostels
Oct 25, 2017 at 1:53 PM
The Indian Women’s team has earned accolades from the cricketing fans all over the world for the fearless brand of cricket they played in the recently concluded ICC Women’s World Cup despite losing the final to host England by nine runs.
The captain Mithali Raj, who became the highest run-scorer in the women’s ODI game recently, said it sad we couldn’t win the trophy, but it is after achieving this feat; the women’s cricket has gone a through a transition in our country. People now are talking about the game and inspiring children to play cricket.
The young team led by Mithali surprised everyone from the first ball of World Cup. If it was Smriti Mandhana who grabbed every body’s eyeballs with her classy cover drives in the opening matches, it was an angry Harmanpreet Kaur who stunned everybody with her powerful hitting at the end. She single-handedly took the semi-final game away from the Aussies with a blistering knock of unbeaten 172 runs.
They were well supported by the experienced Mithali who did her job as she has done for a long time now. All-rounder Deepti Sharma also had a fair show with both bat and ball along with Veda Krishnamurthy who played a splendid knock in a must-win match against the Black Caps. Veteran Jhulan Goswami was her usual self-bowling tight lines and giving early breakthroughs.
The 34-year-old cricketer, in a recent chat, said that long gaps affect a team as the momentum gets lost. However, India have a busy schedule in the coming year as it has a lot of series lined up back to back which will begin with a home series against South Africa.
Notably, Veda Krishnamurthy recently signed a deal with Hobart Hurricanes for the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) after Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana. Talking about the positives of playing foreign leagues, Raj stated though it has helped a lot of cricketers there should be a gap to promote women’s cricket and cricketers.
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Mithali Raj also recalled the old days when players like her and Jhulan Goswami had to travel in unreserved train compartments and stayed in hostels during the 90’s during the u-16 and u-19 days.
“In India we need to make it big before getting some recognition and support from the government,” the woman who is responsible to promote women’s cricket in India signed off.