A day after leading India to victory against Pakistan in their second group match of World T20, former captain and the country’s highest run scorer in the shortest format, Mithali Raj hinted at retirement, confirming that this might be her last appearance in a T20 World Cup.
Stating the inevitable, a realistic Mithali spoke about making room for the youngsters. "There are times when I think about the team, whether it is the right time to move forward, and I believe that now the team is settling, so it could probably be the last World Cup for me, the WT20 format. When you think that the team has gone through a lot of transition, and there are a lot of youngsters in the side, so at some point I’m thinking about more than myself, that whether I would be able to give the best or not,” Mithali said.
Mithali, currently India’s highest run scorer in the shortest format of the game with 2232 runs – 25 more than men’s highest scorer Rohit Sharma – however, has no plans of calling it quits from the other formats of the game. Mithali is all the time highest run scorer in Women’s ODIs.
The value that Mithali brings to the table was for everyone to see on Sunday. She scored a well-paced 56 off 47 balls to help India chase down a tricky 134-run target against a spin-heavy Pakistani bowling attack.
A natural opener for India in T20s, Mithali was ready to slot in the middle order for team’s need in their opening match against New Zealand. “It’s just that maybe because it was a big team we were playing the first game, and we wanted somebody in the middle order, so experience does play a role when you want to push yourself down in the middle order,” she said.
But when the team needed a calm head to settle the nerves in a chase against the arch-rivals, Mithali was again back to her opening position. “I think as an opener, I don’t think too much about how to go about it, but as a batter, you would want to focus on the ball and play with instinct. Batting is all about instincts. You don’t plan and go there because obviously, the opponents have a different plan, and if you only want to stick to your plan, there is obviously a downfall. So as a batter, I focus on watching the ball and playing instinctively whether it is an aggressive shot or walking out for a single,” she said.