Mithali Raj's sluggish scoring could be the tip of the iceberg for India

If any Indian women’s cricket team fan were asked to name one individual to define the side’s ODI journey in the 21st century, Mithali Raj would be the most common answer. The current Indian skipper, who made her ODI debut back in 1999, has been the torch-bearer for the Women In Blue and has largely distinguished herself.

Thus, from a truly historical point of view, there aren’t many women cricketers, not just in India but across the globe that can hold a candle to Mithali’s achievements.

From that perspective alone then, it would seem that Mithali is immune to criticism because, well, she has outlasted most critics and has, on almost all other occasions, not given them a chance to turn hushed tones into clamours.

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More recently, though, there have been murmurs of discontent, not necessarily from within the Indian camp but from nearly everyone else watching the women’s game. India, meanwhile, have maintained that their captain hasn’t put a foot wrong and that this is indeed the way she and the rest of the team needs to be playing.

To be fair to them, that confidence isn’t unfounded. Mithali averages 79.83 in ODI cricket in 2021 and is India’s highest run-getter this calendar year. Yet, for a cricketer long labelled as one of the Women In Blue’s leading lights, it is quite incredible that India have lost 7 of the 9 games Mithali has featured in this year.

Prima facie, one might be tempted to say that the rest of India’s components haven’t functioned properly or that they’ve just been outplayed by better opponents. The truth, though, rather harshly is that Mithali has, despite scoring so many runs, been a part of a larger malaise.

In even blunter terms, a case could be made that Mithali’s archaic approach to ODI cricket is perhaps India’s biggest problem at the moment. That, when considering the stature she enjoys in Indian women’s cricket illustrates the slippery slope the Women In Blue find themselves entrenched in.

Mithali has contributed ODI runs this season and there are no two ways about it. She has easily been the most consistent batter in the Indian line-up and that too is not up for debate. The issue is that those runs have arrived very sluggishly. So much so that it has detrimentally impacted whatever India have sought to achieve and to an extent, even hampered those around Mithali.

Strike rate is often an overused term in ODI cricket. In T20Is, it is perhaps the yardstick applied to batters, both male and female. In the 50-over format, a slightly lower strike rate could be offset by the sheer weight of runs.

However, ODI cricket, unlike Test cricket, still has a logical batting end, meaning that when the 50 overs culminate, one can’t continue batting. Hence, it becomes pretty important to at least have a middling strike rate so that things can keep moving.

Mithali Raj's strike rate has been cast under the scanner in 2021

Mithali, on the other hand, has contrived to do the exact opposite. In 2021, she has struck at 68.13 – a sliver better than her overall strike rate but pretty obsolete in modern-day white-ball cricket.

Interestingly, that strike rate dips to 65.47 in matches that India have lost, which is 77.77% of the times this year. The average keeps hovering around the 67.33-run mark though, indicating that Mithali might’ve played a few match-losing knocks on the way.

Apart from that, Mithali has a tendency to get bogged down severely during the middle overs – a phase where she bats regularly owing to her batting position. Not only is she unable to rotate strike often enough, she has also developed a habit of perishing when wanting to increase the tempo.

So far in 2021, she has been dismissed in the 30-75 run range 7 times out of 8, meaning that she has gotten starts. Mithali’s strike rate, however, meanders towards 66.77, hinting that she has taken time to get herself established at the crease but has then been dismissed when India have least wanted it.

Mithali (R) has been bogged down in the middle overs

In ODI cricket or white-ball cricket in general, the cardinal sin is for any batter to consume deliveries at the start, transfer pressure onto the others and not make it count. While Mithali has scored fifties this season (6 of them), all of them, barring a second-innings knock against England, have been too slow to positively impact the game for India.

In pure numerical terms, she has made her starts count. But from India’s perspective, Mithali has hardly done so. Though one is not trying to imply that Mithali is trying to accomplish as many personal milestones as humanly possible, it is a damning indictment that India have struggled so badly despite her run-scoring form.

Mithali’s style to absorb pressure like a sponge and her subsequent failure to release it has another key drawback. Not only does it put pressure on the batter batting alongside her, it has far-reaching consequences for those below her and at the top of the order.

Quite frequently, Harmanpreet Kaur has had to walk in to bat with an enormous mess to clear up. Additionally, she has been forced to bat at a high strike rate and take risks earlier than what she would’ve deemed ideal.

Unsurprisingly, she hasn’t gotten into any sort of batting rhythm since the start of the year. And, whenever she has looked close to finding her touch, it has been in the T20I format – a format where she leads the side and tries to see that India grab the bull by the horns.

More worryingly, the current brand of cricket Mithali is professing seems to have had an adverse effect on the openers. In fact, before the 2nd ODI against Australia, Mithali was quick to suggest that Smriti Mandhana was not pulling her weight and that the latter, in light of being an experienced campaigner, needed to score more runs.

Though there is a bit of logic to that argument, considering Smriti has only averaged 30.5 since the start of 2021, the fact that Mithali pointed this out in a post-match press conference, that too after a resounding defeat against Australia, just doesn’t seem right.

A part of why India’s openers (Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma and Smriti) have huffed and puffed could be because of the expectations to create a decent enough cushion before the momentum is sucked out of the innings in the middle overs – momentum that the likes of Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet and Richa Ghosh try to recapture when entering the fray.

Furthermore, women’s ODI cricket has evolved significantly over the years, meaning that totals of 200-225, which were long considered the gold standard, are no longer sufficient to win matches, unless the pitch is aiding the bowlers greatly.

Unfortunately, with the style of cricket India and Mithali are professing, their best-case scenario sees them scrap their way to a total around 250, which against outfits such as Australia, England and South Africa is hardly adequate.

The only time they crossed that hurdle was during the 4th ODI against South Africa at Lucknow. Even then, the pitch was so flat that the visitors cruised to victory – a trend that continued against Australia on Tuesday too.

Moreover, with the next 50-over Women’s World Cup scheduled in New Zealand, where surfaces will be conducive to batting, it is imperative that India and Mithali evolve a sustainable mechanism.

When chasing, it might not be as much of an impediment because India will have a target in sight. Even if Mithali meanders along, the decision to increase the tempo would then be imposed upon them rather than them willingly doing it – something that might guarantee more success

Can India turn things around against Australia?

At the moment, the women’s white-ball game has pretty much boiled down to six countries: Australia, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies. Thus, an argument suggesting that India haven’t gotten the desired results this season because of the opposition they’ve faced becomes moot pretty swiftly.

To be blunter, a team like India, especially with a player such as Mithali at the helm, simply needs to do more and put up a better fight against these nations.

As things stand, Mithali, for all that she has achieved, might just be allowing the ODI game to pass her and India by. Mithali has seldom not been recognized as the cricketer that defined a generation of Indian women’s cricket.

But now, her legacy runs the risk of being defined by an approach that is twice shy even before India have been bitten. It wasn’t always this way and it ideally shouldn’t be this way. Yet, it is this way now.

And, unless things are rectified quickly, Mithali’s sluggish scoring might just be the tip of the iceberg for India in ODI cricket.