The veteran Indian cricketer, Mithali Raj has decided to hang her boots from T20I cricket after the home series against England. It has been learned that Mithali is considering retirement from the shortest format of the game as she wants to focus on her One Day International (ODI) career. She is the captain of the Women’s ODI team and wants to give Harmanpreet Singh the chance to stamp her authority on the T20 team for the 2020 T20 World Cup.
Talking about the same, a senior BCCI official said, “Mithali understands that skipper Harmanpreet Kaur will like to concentrate on building a team for the 2020 World T20 and that she is unlikely to feature in that tournament. But a player of her stature should get a warm send-off and that is likely to be against England.”
India lost the first of the three-match T20I series against New Zealand in Wellington on Wednesday by 23 runs and Mithali wasn’t the part of the playing XI in the game. Her place in the playing XI is still not confirmed but she has now decided to hang up her boots. In all likelihood, 36-old Mithali could get a sendoff in the three-match T20 series against England, starting March 4.
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Some of the reports of PTI suggested that Mithali’s place in the T20I side has been in doubt and she wasn’t scheduled to take part in any matches against England. She was informed about the same by a senior member of the team management and Mithali decided to retire on her own terms rather than being dragged out of the team.
The official added, “It is still not sure whether she would like to play the full series against England or like former men’s team pacer Ashish Nehra, play the first game of the series and retire.”
There was a lot of controversy about Mithali’s place in the side after the Women’s World T20 semi-final against England. However, some days after the match, she sent out a long mail to the BCCI where she said that Committee of Administrators (CoA) member Diana Edulji and chief coach Ramesh Powar were trying to ruin her career.
Powar maintained his innocence and he was publically backed by T20I captain Harmanpreet. However, in her T20I career, Mithali has scored 2283 runs from 85 T20 Internationals in her career with 17 half-centuries to her name.
