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Mithali Raj Became The First Women Cricketer To Play 200 ODIs
By CricShots - Feb 1, 2019 2:27 pm
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On Friday, the Indian skipper, Mithali Raj became the first woman cricketer to feature in 200 One-Day International (ODI) matches. The third ODI between India women and New Zealand women at Seddon Park, Hamilton marks the 200th occasion for Mithali in ODIs, although she could only contribute with nine runs before being dismissed by Leigh Kasperek.

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Mithali Raj

In April last year, Mithali had become the most capped ODI women’s player as she surpassed Charlotte Edwards’ record of 191 appearances. Among active cricketers, she is light years ahead of the next in line – Suzie Bates, who is playing her 118th one-day international.

As of Friday, Raj, who made her debut in June 1999, has served the country for 19 years and 219 days, next only to Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya and Javed Miandad in terms of longevity of a player’s international career in cricket. She has featured in 200 of the 263 ODIs India women have played. In these 200 matches, she has amassed 6613 runs, becoming the leading run-scorer in women’s cricket in ODIs and even proved her credentials as the skipper. She has led India on 123 occasions.

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Mithali also has the best average in successful chases for at least 20 innings – 112.29, ahead of Bates and her New Zealand counterpart Amy Sattherwaite. She has as many as seven centuries and 52 fifties under her belt and hence, she also holds the record for the most 50-plus scores in ODIs.

List of woman cricketers with the most number of ODI matches:

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Woman batters

Recently, Mithali was engaged in the long fiasco with the former national team head coach Ramesh Powar since the semi-final of 2018 ICC Women’s World T20. She was dropped from the playing XI during the semi-final of 2018 ICC Women’s World T20 against England women that India women lost by 8 wickets. Raj also missed the previous game of that tournament which was the last group stage game against Australia women.