Australian women's cricket team batter Nicole Bolton has caused a furor after she revealed a conversation with former coach, Cathryn Fitzpatrick. The former Australian bowler with 240 international wickets took a dig at legendary Indian batter Mithali Raj during a conversation with Bolton. She revealed how the coach took a dig at Mithali’s strike rate, asking her if she wants to be ‘the Mithali Raj of Australian Cricket’. She said that Mithali’s hundred doesn’t matter if India end up losing the game.
“For so long, I was just trying to impress her. I was just trying to get her to see me. And, I just remember, she called me into her office to have a chat. And she was like, ‘Do you honestly want to be the Mithali Raj of the Australia Cricket Team?’ And I was like, ‘Mithali Raj?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, do you honestly want to strike at 50? It’s okay if you get 100 but the team still loses and you get 100 off 150 balls?’ And I was, ‘Woah! This is how Cathryn Fitzpatrick sees me. That’s not good at all. If this is how she sees me, my career is going to be pretty short-lived,” Bolton revealed in a Stories After Stumps podcast which took place during her early days in List A cricket with Victoria.
“She sort of said to me, ‘Why can’t you be like Meg Lanning or Elyse Villani? That’s how we want you to play,” she added.
The conversation took place when Bolton scored a poised hundred on her debut for Victoria and followed it up with scores of 35 off 68 balls and 43 off 69 deliveries.
Bolton had a considerable impact after her comparison with Mithali. She followed it up with a career-defending her game by scoring 170 of the 156 balls laced with 24 boundaries.
Bolton represented Australia in 55 international matches. However, she excelled in the ODIs scoring 1,896 runs from 50 games at an average of 41.21 including four centuries and 12 fifties. Her strike rate is 72.31.
Mithali’s ODI numbers
Mithali is one of the best batters in the history of women’s cricket. In ODIs, she has scored 7,805 runs at an average of 50.68 including seven centuries and 64 fifties.
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