India ODI captain Mithali Raj will be conferred with Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, a government released has said. Notably, she was among those cricketers who were recommended by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in June this year.

However, she is the only female cricketer to have an international career of 22 years and still going, besides becoming the pillar of Indian women’s cricket where a lot of youngsters idolize her. She made her debut for the country on June 26, 1999. And, only batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar (22 years 91 days) has a longer career than her across men’s and women’s cricket as well.

Moreover, no other cricketer has been active in international cricket for this long of 22 years. She has so far played in 12 Tests, 220 ODIs and 89 T20Is so far in her cricketing career. She has scored more than 10,000 runs across formats including eight centuries and 80 half-centuries.

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However, back in June, BCCI had recommended her name along with Ravi Ashwin and Shikhar Dhawan for the prestigious award. While she has been awarded the prestigious Khel Ratna, India opener Shikhar Dhawan will be given the Arjuna Award as well.

“We had a detailed discussion and it was decided to send in the names of Ashwin and women’s Test and ODI skipper’s name for the Khel Ratna. We are recommending Dhawan again for the Arjuna while we will also suggest the names of Rahul and Bumrah,” news agency ANI quoted a source as saying.

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However, Khel Ratna is the highest sporting honour in India and in 2020, for the very first time in the history of the honour, five athletes including India’s swashbuckling opener Rohit Sharma, Manika Batra, Vinesh Phogat, Rani Rampal and Mariyappan Phangavelue had received the award as well.