Harmanpreet Kaur surpasses Mithali Raj to become the leading run-scorer for India in T20Is

Indian women’s cricket team skipper Harmanpreet Kaur touched a career milestone when she surpassed former Indian skipper Mithali Raj’s record of most T20I runs for India on Saturday. Going past Mithali’s 2364 T20I runs, Harmanpreet (2,372) is the leading T20I run-scorer for India now. She set the record 16 days after Mithali’s retirement from all forms of cricket.

After both these stalwarts, India’s Smriti Mandhana comes third (2011 runs) and Jemimah Rodrigues (1094) stands at the fourth spot in the list of most T20I runs in women’s cricket for India.

Harmanpreet has scored those many runs in 123 T20I matches at an average of 27. The attacking batter, who made her debut in 2009, is also the only Indian batter to score a T20I ton in women’s cricket. Her T20I ton came against New Zealand in the 2018 edition of the T20 World Cup.

On Saturday, Harmanpreet contributed with both bat (31 off 32 balls) and ball (1 for 12) to steer the team to a series sealing five-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the second T20. Vice captain Smriti Mandhana’s (39 off 34 balls) experience complemented by the exuberance of both Shefali Verma (17 off 10 balls) and Sabbhineni Meghana (17 off 10 balls) helped India chase down the 126-run target in 19.1 overs. The third and final T20 will be played here on Monday.