Mithali Raj - The Youth Sports Icon Of Excellence

Mithali Raj, the captain of Indian Women’s cricket team, recently received the ‘Youth Sports Icon of Excellence Award’ from Shashi Tharoor at the third edition of RADIANT WELLNESS CONCLAVE, which was held in Chennai on 23rd September, 2017.



 



Raj, who once wanted to be a Bharatnatyam dancer was given two career options by her father- to choose dance or cricket, and she chose cricket which turned out to be one of the best choices, not only for Mithali herself but also for women’s cricket in India and globally. Making her ODI debut in 1999, just at the age of sixteen, she scored her debut century- an unbeaten 114 runs against Ireland. She suffered through a strain of typhoid during the CricInfo Women’s World Cup held in 2002, but with her strong determination and sheer dedication she came back on the field and even led her team to their first World Cup final in 2005 in South Africa, where they unfortunately lost against Australia who proved too strong for them.



 



However, in the following year, she led her side to their first ever Test and series victory in England and bagged the Asia Cup for her country for the second time within just a twelve month span.



 



Raj is nick-named as “Tendulkar of Indian Women’s Cricket” as she is currently the all-time leading run-scorer for India in all formats including Test, ODIs, and T20Is. During the 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup, she scored her seventh consecutive half-century and bagged the record for most consecutive fifties by a player. She also holds the record for playing the most consecutive Women’s One Day Internationals (109) for a team. She is also the first Indian and fifth woman cricketer in the world to score over 1000 World Cup runs. And if these weren’t enough achievements already, she also became the first captain (Male or female) to lead India to an ICC ODI WORLD CUP final twice (2005 and 2017), and thereby added another feather to her cap. Each of these achievements led her to what she is today- The youth sports icon of excellence.



 



Besides this 'Youth Sports Icon of Excellence Award', 2017 she also received the ‘Arjuna Award’ in 2003, 'Padma Shri' in 2015 and ‘Vogue Sportsperson of the Year’ in 2017 and also claimed a well-deserved place in the ‘BBC 100 Women list’ 2017.