To understand the impact of Mithali Raj on Indian cricket, one has to go back to 1999, when she debuted in a one-off ODI against Ireland in the obscure. In the three and a half years before that, the only international cricket India Women had played was the 1997 World Cup at home. Back in the 1970s and even in the 1980s, women's cricket in India used to draw substantial crowds. That went on the decline in the 1990s, and took a nosedive as India Women played fewer and fewer matches.
Raj scored a hundred on ODI debut, in a match no one back home saw – for it was not televised. By the end of that English summer, she was already touted as a future star. The journey reached the next level when she got that 214 in Taunton in 2002 – at that point the highest score in Women's Test cricket.
Two years later, at 22, she led India for the first time. India had never finished outside the top four in the World Cup until then, but they had never made it to the final either. Under Raj in 2005, they achieved that for the first time. She rose to the challenge in the semi-final, where India had faltered so many times until then. Coming to bat at 38/2 in the 14th over, Raj batted through the innings to finish unbeaten on 91. India's 204/6 turned out to be too much for New Zealand, who collapsed for 164. Twelve years later, she would lead India to the final again. Yet again India faced New Zealand; and yet again she got a hundred.
Raj's 7,805 ODI runs are almost two thousand more than anyone else's in history, as are her 71 scores in excess of fifty. But her legacy extends beyond that. Women's cricket was in a semi-amateur state in India when she started off. A world record in Test cricket, leading her side to the 2005 World Cup final, and establishing herself as a peerless run-machine established her as a role model for an entire generation. It was around this time that Smriti Mandhana, Veda Krishnamurthy – cricketers who would play alongside Raj in the 2010s and early 2020s – would be inspired by Raj to take up cricket.
India Women are nowhere close to attaining the stature they deserve to, but they are in a significantly better situation than when Raj debuted. The central contracts, the better-than-nothing Women's T20 Challenge, the global following of the Indian team – none of them would have been possible but for her.
Mithali Raj retires as one of the greatest in history – but that is only her career, in dry numbers. In terms of impact, she leaves far more behind.