Twenty-three years of hustle and glory... Mithali Raj called time on her storied career, announcing her decision to "retire from all forms of international cricket".
Breakfast with Champions
Breakfast with Champions
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00:00I wanted to be a dancer.
00:01If you talk about cricket, people talk about men's cricket, never women's cricket.
00:04When money flows, there are other distractions.
00:09Cricket all through these years was only related to men's cricket.
00:15If you talk about cricket, people talk about men's cricket, never women's cricket.
00:18Yeah.
00:19Girls were never into cricket or probably I don't see any girls those days actually watching the match.
00:24Yeah.
00:24They used to come only to have fun, watch the boys and go.
00:28So that was it, nobody would know they were batting, bowling, what is this, field set and stuff like that.
00:33But now when you have these young boys or young girls coming up and saying like you know,
00:38we saw your match, we want to play cricket, where can we go and enrol ourselves.
00:43So that's a success for me.
00:46Yeah.
00:46Because getting the girls to watch cricket is a big thing.
00:50It was my dad's decision to put me into cricket.
00:53Yeah.
00:53And of course mom didn't want me to be a cricketer, she wanted me to be a dancer.
00:58Oh.
00:59Yeah.
00:59I thought you were going to say doctor, when you said D, I thought you'd say doctor.
01:03Because mothers are always saying, become a doctor kid.
01:07No, I started dance much before I got into cricket.
01:11And dance was something of my own choice.
01:13Yeah.
01:13I wanted to be a dancer.
01:15So which form?
01:17Bharatanatyam, classical dance.
01:19I felt I enjoyed dancing.
01:20Yeah.
01:21I enrolled myself and then cricket happened because of various reasons.
01:24From a South Indian family, a Tamil family, like you know, cricket was nowhere.
01:30Nobody played sport in my family.
01:31Yeah, sport in India, any sport.
01:33Yeah.
01:34So for my grandparents to accept that their granddaughter is playing cricket,
01:39that too with the boys.
01:40And she goes in the morning and comes back in the evening.
01:42She's like, I'm here, I'm here, and stuff like that.
01:44And I have a couple of stitches on my face.
01:47So like, you know, no one will marry her, it's cut here, it's cut here.
01:51And my dad, my mom were like these enemies.
01:55Yeah.
01:56But then my parents have cocooned me from all these things.
02:00It never came to me to deal, you know.
02:03If I had to deal with it as a youngster,
02:05probably mentally I wouldn't be as strong as what I've turned out to be.
02:10But I basically see myself mentoring because I think that is something which is very important in today's,
02:17the current players who are playing.
02:20Yeah.
02:20Because there's so much of cricket and with it now in women's cricket,
02:24there is, when money flows, there are other distractions.
02:27I think I've seen a lot of players from my own team
02:31who could not handle the instant success that World Cup gave us.
02:36Yeah.
02:37Not everybody are from cities or given that cushioning of parents who have knowledge how to groom you as children.
02:45I had that advantage, but not everyone would.
02:47There are a lot of girls who come from very interiors.
02:50And for them, this exposure is very new and they struggle.
02:53So at those times, it's important that as a probably a senior player or if you have a mentor who can work on them.
03:00Yeah.
03:00Then they can actually extend their career.