The doyen of female cricket, Mithali Raj announced retirement from all forms of international game on Wednesday as she called it quits to the 23-year-long career.
The veteran ended her illustrious career with a record 7,805 runs from 232 ODIs, the most in the format. Not just this, with an overall tally of 10,868 runs, she is also the leading run getter in women's cricket across formats.
Meanwhile, The International Cricket Council (ICC) has congratulated India legend, Mithali Raj, for an outstanding 23-year international career during which she broke several records. The 39-year-old led India in this year's ICC Women's Cricket World Cup in New Zealand. She had earlier retired from T20Is in September 2019.
ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said Raj is a hero for cricketers around the world and hoped she would continue to contribute to the game in the years to come.
"Mithali is one of the all-time greats of the game. Over the past 23 years, many young girls and boys will have been inspired to take up the sport after watching her," ICC Chief Executive Geoff Allardice said.
"Mithali has played a huge role in raising the profile of women's cricket during a crucial period of its growth and I sincerely hope she will stay involved with the game in the coming years. On behalf of the ICC, I congratulate her for a fantastic career."
The veteran featured in 89 T20 Internationals and even though she got to play only 12 Tests in her long career, she managed to score a double hundred and remains the only woman cricketer from India to do so in the longer format.
She scored a century on her ODI debut in 1999. At 16 years and 205 days, she became the youngest centurion in women's internationals. The record was only broken 22 years later in 2021, when Ireland's Amy Hunter achieved that feat on her 16th birthday.
Raj has 89 wins out of 155 as captain - the most by any player in women's ODIs. Her 155 matches as captain is also the highest in women's ODIs.
