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XtraTime Web Desk: A sixteen year old girl scored a century on her ODI debut for Indian women’s team against Ireland at Milton Keynes in England on this day in 1999. Since then Mithali Raj has gone on to represent the country in 209 ODIs out of the 222 One Day Internationals that India played during her time so far. 37 year old Mithali is now the highest run scorer in women’s ODI cricket with a staggering 6888 runs with a batting average of over 50, making her the greatest of all time.

The day Mithali decides to hang her boots, she will go down as one of the all-time greats of the game in the 50 over format purely because of her dominance in this format. When one considers she has played for two decades, it is a bit of a shame that Mithali has only played 10 tests for India.
Mithali became the first women cricketer to cross 6000 runs in ODIs during the 2017 Women’s World Cup in England. She overtook England’s Charlotte Edwards who has scored 5992 runs from 180 innings at an average of 38.16. While Mithali has so far registered 6882 runs from 189 innings at an average of 50.64. She also scored 7 hundreds and 53 fifties.

Mithali has also led India in 132 matches, taking the team to two World Cup finals in 2005 & 2017. Assuming the 2021 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand next year will be her last; Mithali would want to go on a high. And that will be a perfect salutation to a glorious international career.