Nisshin: India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana added another feather to her illustrious cap as she became the leading run-scorer in T20I cricket across men’s and women’s game Sunday.
Mandhana achieved the milestone during the Asian Games semifinal against Bangladesh women at the Korogi Sports Park with a strong cameo of 37 from 19 balls. The Indian vice-captain surpassed former New Zealand cricketer Suzie Bates to top the run-scorers’ list. She now has 4788 runs in 171 innings.
Coming into the game, Mandhana had 4751 runs in 170 innings and needed to score only eight to go past the New Zealand icon, and she did that pretty early in her innings when she hit a couple of fours in her first seven balls with two singles too.
Mandhana and Bates were already above the leading run-scorer in men’s T20Is – Babar Azam – and have now made further gap from him.
Most runs in T20I cricket (men’s and women’s):
1 – Smriti Mandhana: 4,788 runs
2 – Suzie Bates: 4,758 runs
3 – Babar Azam: 4,596 runs
4 – Jos Buttler: 4,292 runs
5 – Harmanpreet Kaur: 4,287 runs
Mandhana had recently become the leading run-scorer in women’s international cricket as well. During the Asia Cup, she broke the record of former India skipper Mithali Raj to become the most prolific run-scorer in the women’s game.
She hit 124 against Hong Kong in the Asia Cup to surpass Mithali’s tally of 10,868 runs and also hit her 18th international hundred, which was the most in women’s international cricket, making her go past the legendary Meg Lanning. The century record was later equalled by South Africa women’s captain Laura Wolvaardt.
Coming to the Asiad semifinal, India opted to bat first against Bangladesh. The Women in Blue are looking to defend their gold medal from the 2023 Hangzhou Games. They defeated hosts Japan in the quarterfinal earlier.
