The captain of the Indian team unexpectedly announced the end of her 23-year career. Apart from her prodigious talent and achievements on the field, she also carried the greater burden of ensuring the survival of women’s cricket in India—which has long been neglected and dismissed.
Researched by: Sara Varghese & Prafula Grace Busi
Family history: Raj was born in 1982 into a Tamil family. Her father was in the Air Force—while her mother worked in an engineering firm. She was raised in Hyderabad after her father took a bank job. She has an elder brother, Mithun. As you can see, she was quite a cutie as a kid:
Not a born cricketer: As many Tamilian girls, Mithali too started training in Bharatanatyam—which was her first true love, and she dreamed of becoming a professional dancer. She ended up in cricket camp for reasons every Indian child can relate to—as her mother confesses:
“To be honest, Mithali loved dancing. In fact, she herself went and got enrolled for dancing classes at school when she was in class 2. I wanted her to get into the habit of waking up early, as she was a late riser, and that’s how her father started taking her to the [cricket] camp.”
A star is spotted: Eight-year old Mithali was dragged to her brother’s cricket coaching sessions at 5:30 am, piled on to her father’s motorcycle. Then this happened:
“Mithali would sit by the boundary and finish her homework. Once she was finished, the restless girl would sometimes pick up a bat and hit a dozen balls along the ground as far as she could. Her casual hitting impressed the coach, Jyothi Prasad, a former first-class cricketer. Mithali’s swift movements to drive the ball—a step forward before the bat came down in an arc—convinced him that she had potential.”
She got her first cricket bat at the age of nine—and Prasad began to teach her the basics. He also advised her father to focus on the talent of his daughter—not the son.
From dancer to cricketer: As Raj’s talent became increasingly obvious, she soon began training with the well-respected Sampath Kumar—who coached a girls team at a local school. He predicted she would play for the national team by the age of 14—which her father thought was a bluff. But with her career arc now determined, the barely 10-year-old was forced to give up dance:
“Dance was my personal passion, but the level of cricket I had reached meant I had to understand my priorities…My parents invested a lot more time in making me a cricketer than a dancer, so I had to choose cricket.”
It took her a long time to make peace with the decision:
“After a certain period of time I reached a point when I was not into the sport. Of course, I played for a long time, but there was a point when I hated playing it. Yet it was my dad’s dream that I should represent India and play good cricket, so I used to work hard. However, till then, it never came from within that I should be a cricketer. It was only later, around 2008, when I took a personal decision to enjoy playing cricket; and play for my sake.”
A difficult childhood: Unsurprisingly, her parents put all their energy into turning Raj into a cricket star. As she says: “They didn't give me an idea that there had to be a Plan B. They trained me like a racehorse. I wasn’t allowed to see right or left.” There were no friends, no social outings or family gatherings. She didn’t even see much of her own brother. As a teenager, “all she knew was that she wanted to grow old very quickly.”
Sampath was a demanding coach, as well. Apart from six-hour daily training sessions, Raj had to practice hitting straight in the narrow corridors of her school: “Sir used to hit me with a stick if the ball touched the walls.” And she would often come home in tears. But she now credits the punishing childhood regimen for her success.
Amusing point to note: After Raj’s retirement her mother wants to work on improving her basic life skills:
“Even today, she is bad at routes, terrible at registering names. If I give her a list of things to do, chances are she will forget half of it. She can hardly cook. She can be a bit of a rebel at times, so letting her get streaks in her hair was my way of saying, 'Okay, have your way this time, provided you listen to me otherwise.'”
It would take far too long to list Raj’s many achievements, but here’s a quick glimpse of just how brilliantly talented she is:
Not exactly like Sachin: Raj is often called the ‘lady’ Sachin Tendulkar, but the reality is that she bore a far greater burden than him—which in turn affected her batting record. As News18 notes, for the longest time, Raj had to single-handedly carry the team:
“Mithali scored a century on debut at age 16; she has been the team’s spine even before she left puberty. She has been the massive nucleus, surrounded by smaller electrons that came and went. And that meant that even at her youngest, she had to carry the team, clamping down on her own game.”
It is one reason why–despite her immense talent—she only has seven centuries.
The burden of captaincy: Tendulkar became captain at 23, but Raj was two years younger—with zero experience:
“I was far too nervous about how I would perform as a captain. I was just 21, and had ex-captains playing under me. More than 70% of the side was packed with seniors. I had never captained in domestic cricket either, and was very raw. So, it was a huge challenge. But I knew that if I scored runs, the players would get inspired.”
And yet she led the team to a World Cup final that year—despite being on painkillers for a knee injury.
Also this: Where Tendulkar was able to step away from captaincy and focus on his legacy, Raj had no such luxury. She only got a brief respite from the job between 2008—when she was sacked—and 2012—when she was brought back because there were no other leaders. As she herself admits:
“I’ve enjoyed my long career, but also at the same time, if I really have to introspect, I think probably because of the responsibility I’ve not been able to enhance my batting as much as I want to.”
Quote to note: In 2017, a reporter asked Raj to name her favourite male cricketer. Her response: “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?”
The bottomline: Women’s cricket in India has come a long way since a 16-year-old Raj made her debut—due to her unselfish commitment to the sport and her team. But her greatest achievement is evident in the young women whom she inspired to greatness—like Smriti Mandana who was only three years old when Raj made her debut. So it’s only fitting that we leave you with this wonderful collage that ex-cricketer Ananya Upendran made as a teenager—and shared when Raj announced her retirement:
Cricket Monthly has a lovely reported profile of Raj and her family. News18 has two good reads. One is a book excerpt that details her childhood. The second is this excellent analysis of how her captaincy thwarted her batting ambitions. Snehal Pradhan in Hindustan Times places Raj’s achievements in the context of a cricket board with very little interest or investment in the women’s team. Also read: Our in-depth Big Story on women’s cricket in India.
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