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
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
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.