Rumi, fish curry, sketching and plants, Mithali Raj loves them all as much as cricket

On this particular occasion, with no e-readers allowed inside the dressing room, she was reading a paperback copy of The Essential Rumi by Persian thinker Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (Rumi). During the course of the tournament, everyone kept a track of how Raj sped through it. It kept her calm and helped her concentrate better.

The love of books

Raj has loved reading since childhood. The word is that former player and coach Purnima Rau gave her a collection of Enid Blyton books.

During the 2017 World Cup, Raj was also seen reading the autobiography of former England men’s captain Nasser Hussain: Playing with Fire. The title is significant because through most of her career, Raj did play with fire starting from her decision to play cricket.

The focus on Raj’s passion other than cricket is important because it showed a different side to a player who lasted for 23 years in the sport until she called time this week. It showed that cricket was an essential part of her life, but her passion for books and other things too.

That is what separated her from the rest, many of whom are consumed by the sport at all times. She had a life beyond the sport which also helped her deal with the highs and lows.

During the course of the pandemic, Raj rediscovered her passion for books as she sifted through both fiction and non-fiction titles.

“When I am playing, I try to keep the genre very easy-going and breezy. I can’t be into the book and not be into the profession I am in. Now that there is no cricket happening, I have a lot of time so I keep the genre a little intense. I read autobiographies or a book like White Mughals by William Dalrymple and have started on Ruskin Bond’s short stories,” Raj told The Times of India at the height of the pandemic in April 2020.

A book by the former mental conditioning coach of the Indian men’s team when they won the 2011 World Cup, Paddy Upton is another favourite of Raj. The book is titled The Barefoot Coach.

“It has a lot of things that can be used. He was the mental conditioning coach for the men’s team when they won the 2011 World Cup. He shared a lot of inputs on the journey of the Indian team to the 2011 World Cup. That book helped me to realise a lot of things as a cricketer and how things happen in terms of the management, in terms of the players. The relationship between coach-player, manager-player, physio-player, players-players. A lot of in-depth reading happened and that has given a lot of perspective to me,” added Raj.

The love of dance

Rumi famously said What You Seek is Seeking You. This line fits perfectly with Raj, who has had a long and successful cricket career by any metric.

But she was not meant to be a cricketer in the first place. Her first calling was Bharatnatyam. She learnt the classical dance form from the age of eight. It was a chance encounter that led her to cricket at the age of 10. Her father Dorai Raj, a retired Air Force officer, would take her to the coaching camp where her brother trained at the St John’s Academy in Secunderabad.

These trips to the training sessions were necessary because the senior Raj did not want her to become lazy. So, the dutiful sister would sit by the boundary line and finish her homework. It was just by chance that once she picked up the bat and started hitting the balls. The coach, Jyothi Prasad, was convinced that the girl had talent just by looking at her bat once or twice. There was no looking back then.

“Honestly, cricket happened to me. It was not by choice. My dad took me to the academy which was only for girls. If at that time someone could ask a 10-year-old Mithali what (she wanted) to become, I would have said I wanted to be an IAS officer. Not a sportsperson or a dancer. I had it in me to be an IAS officer,” Raj told Star Sports Telugu TV programme Girl Power - Sarileru Manakevaru (There is no match for us).

A future in sports

So, in a way cricket sought Raj out. But she was coming into a game that was going nowhere in the 1990s. Raj almost made it to the Indian team at the age of 14 for the 1997 World Cup at home, but could not go beyond the provisional squad.

The Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) was a poor cousin of the powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The economy opening up helped the men’s game with their biggest superstar Sachin Tendulkar reigning supreme in the 1990s. But the women’s game was struggling, with the WCAI struggling to make ends meet. A number of girls left the game.

“Many talented players at that time, because of lack of money, had to shift to different fields. For, after 23-24 years, parents will ask what is next? So, being a woman cricketer what can you tell your parents?” Raj told Star Sports. “If they had said - ‘I don’t earn money, I am playing for passion’ - nobody would buy that line of thinking. So, at that time if the BCCI were to be in control of the sport, we would have had more players in women’s cricket,” she added.

Then came the big change in the women’s game. From 2005, BCCI watched over both Indian men's and women's cricket at the international level. There was still reluctance in India among the state associations. It was only when former Union Minister Sharad Pawar as the BCCI president put his foot down that the merger finally happened in India, albeit half-heartedly.

That changed things for the better for the women's team. Raj was at the forefront as the captain of the side. She was the last known link with how the game was under the WCAI alongside Jhulan Goswami. Raj had seen the struggle earlier, but in the very first few months under BCCI, the girls struck gold as they won a Test under her leadership in England.

Writing history, one half-century at time

There was a period of indifference from the BCCI after the merger, leading to a few lows in Raj’s cricketing career. India went from being a regular Test playing nation to one that did not play one at all. This despite Raj's own personal exploits in the format.

She was unstoppable with the bat in the ODI format, too with a number of records listed against her name during her long career.

As a captain too she had a long run which coincided with indifference from the Indian board towards the women’s game. The addition of the T20 format at the highest level caused a different issue which resulted in a bit of discord in the Indian camp, especially between head coach Ramesh Powar and Raj.

A new set of players was emerging. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana were bred under the BCCI umbrella unlike Raj and Goswami who made it through WCAI ranks. These players were now challenging the established norms of playing the game and were emerging as leaders in their own right.

Raj, however, held her own as she led India to the 2017 ODI World Cup final against England. This was the second time that India made the ODI World Cup final under Raj, with the 2005 edition being the previous time. India fell short in 2017 but the way the team fought under Raj, they won the hearts of an entire nation. The 2017 tournament saw a re-emergence of women’s cricket in the Indian minds and Raj had a big role to play in that.

End of an era

It was known well in advance that the 2022 ODI World Cup would be Raj's swansong at the international level after having earlier retired from the T20I format. A perfect finish at the World Cup was not to be as India was booted out on net run-rate; Raj was in tears and so were a billion Indians.

She took a bit of time, but finally called time on her long career. Now she can indulge her other loves in life: reading, and food.

Raj's favourites are fish curry, mutton curry, fiery red chilli and coconut chutney with dosa and idli.

There's a link to cricket in her food choices, too. Raj comes from a traditional Tamil Brahmin family. When her childhood coach suggested that she needed to consume fish and chicken to build up stamina, her mother was only too willing to cook it and her father and brother started eating meat to give her company.

While she waits for her spicy food, Raj can also try her new love for sketching and look after her favourite plants. After all, there will be all the time in the world in the short-term before she can get back to her favourite sport in a different capacity.

Perhaps this one cricketer has done more for the sport, not just the women’s game, than anyone else in recent times. So, the title Lady Tendulkar is misplaced and wrongly attributed.

Everyone just needs to remember how she took down a reporter before the 2017 World Cup. She was asked who her favourite male cricketer was. Pat came the reply: "Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?"

Hence as we celebrate Raj’s career on the field, a quote by Rumi fits her best: “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”