In her cricket journey 'highs and lows', Mithali Raj's numbers stand out

The world's most prolific run-getter had a career spanning over two decades; she was Indian captain in 195 matches.

Indian cricketer Mithali Dorai Raj announced her retirement on Wednesday, signing off a career that began before the turn of the millennium.

“The journey was full of highs and some lows. Each event taught me something unique and the last 23 years have been the most fulfilling, challenging and enjoyable years of my life,” she wrote in a social media post.

Her first one-day international match as a 16-year-old began with an unbeaten century on debut: one of only six women to have achieved this feat. She ended her career with 7,805 runs: the most by a woman cricketer. An analysis of her career statistics from ESPNcricinfo shows a remarkably consistent scorer of runs.

Her batting average has remained above 40 after the early volatility of the first 20-30 matches. She ended her career with an average of 50.68 in ODIs as seen in chart 1 (hover over the line for the batting average at any given point in her career).

She played 232 One Day International (ODI) matches, 89 Twenty20 Internationals and 12 Tests. Her average in Test cricket was 43.68. Her highest test score was a double century-214. Her T20 International average was 37.52 with a high score of 97. She remains in the top-ten list in terms of number of centuries in one-day internationals-the format she has played most and despite not opening in most matches, and has among the top five batting averages in the world.

She also captained India for much of her career. She was Indian captain in 195 matches including 155 ODIs. She had a win/loss ratio of 1.4 in ODIs. The win/loss ratio is the number of wins for every loss. It was 1.1 in T20 Internationals and 3.0 for Tests (as seen in chart 2).

There were some changes in the win/loss ratio over time, especially over the last few years. It was 1.8 in July 2017. It had been declining since. It dropped to 1.4 by March 2022-the last match played against South Africa at Christchurch.

Nevertheless, she ended up with an ODI record as captain which is better than most of her male counterparts who had led the country in over 100 matches, barring M S Dhoni. Dhoni had a win/loss ratio of 1.49 compared to her 1.41. Mohammad Azharuddin, the former India captain, had a win/loss ratio of 1.18. It was 1.17 for Sourav Ganguly. Virat Kohli was 2.41 and Rahul Dravid was 1.27 though both captained the country in less than 100 ODI matches; compared to Mithali Raj’s 155.

Her longevity creates another record. She has been in the game spanning more than 20 years just like Sachin Tendulkar, the former India captain who has the most number of runs in men’s cricket. The only difference is that she outlasted him by over 150 days.