India’s Mithali Raj CONFIRMS: This will be my LAST World Cup!

While Raj registered a century (109), Harmanpreet and Veda stroked contrasting fifties - 90-ball 60 and 45-ball 70 - respectively

By: Score Keepers |
July 16, 2017 2:35 pm

India eves skipper Mithali Raj has confirmed that this is going to be her last World Cup. She is the first women’s batter to reach 6000 runs, which is a world record. She also got a century against New Zealand to see India through to the semi-finals of the coveted ICC event. While Raj registered a century (109), Harmanpreet and Veda stroked contrasting fifties – 90-ball 60 and 45-ball 70 – respectively. India will now play Australia for a place in the finals. But Australia will enter the match as favourites as they have defeated India in the league stage and that too, convincingly. India will play Australia on Thursday (20 July), which could very well be Mithali Raj’s last appearance in a world cup match.

Mithali spoke to an Indian website post the Kiwi clash and said, “I’m extremely happy because for a couple (Jhulan Goswami) of us, this is going to be the last World Cup.”

“So, our first aim was to qualify for the semis. I have always been happy to score runs for the country. I’ve always dreamed getting more and more runs because the hunger never dies,” she concluded according to Cricbuzz.

India scored 265, but at a certain stage they were looking to get anything around 250, but because of a late flourish by Veda, India powered on to 265.

Speaking of the 5-fer Rajeshwari Gayakwad bagged, Mithali said, “It’s always important that if the fast bowlers give you those couple of early wickets, then the spinners really don’t have the pressure of getting the first wicket.”

“It happened in the last two games, against Australia and South Africa, that the spinners had lot of pressure when they came in to get that one wicket, but when we had Suzie Bates in the second over, we knew they were already on the back foot because when you’re chasing 260-plus, the team always looks for the openers to give them a good start.”Raj further stated.

“It’s always important that if the fast bowlers give you those couple of early wickets, then the spinners really don’t have the pressure of getting the first wicket,” Raj said. “It happened in the last two games, against Australia and South Africa, that the spinners had lot of pressute when they came in to get that one wicket. But today, when we had Suzie Bates in the second over, we knew they were already on the back foot because when you’re chasing 260-plus, the team always looks for the openers to give them a good start,” Mithali ended.