Women Cricketers that made us proud in 2020

Jemimah Rodrigues is only the second Indian to score a double-hundred in domestic U-19 cricket and the first Indian woman to score a fifty on T20 World Cup debut. A solid top-order right-hand batter, Rodrigues’ fearless shot-making during her maiden international fifty, in 2018, came in for praise from opposition captain Meg Lanning. Soon, former England captain Nasser Husain said that Rodrigues, only 17 at the time, would be "a star for India".

Radha Yadav recently became the first bowler in history of Women's T20 Challenge to take 5-wicket haul this year. Though, she had a shaky initiation into international cricket at 17 but from there, Yadav evolved into a confident and consistent aggressive wicket-taking option for India in T20Is. One of three Indians in the ICC's 2019 T20I Team of the Year, she achieved a career-best No. 2 T20I bowling ranking late last year and has taken at least one wicket in each of her 24 T20I outings since mid-November 2018.

Born in Siliguri, West Bengal, Richa Ghosh entered the limelight earlier this year, when at the age of 16, she was selected to be a part of the Indian team for their Women's T20 World Cup campaign. Before that, she was also selected to represent the Indian team for their tri-nation series in Australia. Recently, she featured for the Trailblazers in the Women's T20 Challenge held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in November. A complete package, who made her Team India debut last year, bats, is a wicket-keeper and a medium-pace bowler.

Indian women’s opener Smriti Mandhana has made a mark in the last few years as an explosive opener. The left-handed Mandhana has a good sense of building an inning, and she is known for giving a strong start to the team and is capable of playing some huge shots. The 23-year-old Mandhana holds the number-4 position in the ICC ODI rankings. Not only this, but Mandhana has also been awarded the Arjuna Award.

All-rounder Deepti Sharma of the Indian cricket team is known for her excellent fielding. Apart from this, she is an all-rounder and handles the innings as per the requirement of the team. The left-handed player is an expert in taking wickets in the middle overs for Team India besides batting well.

Mithali Raj is rightly credited for the development of women’s cricket in India. In fact, Mithali brought women’s cricket to a new dimension in India. Mithali knows how to build a long inning with a sense of maturity. Apart from this, Mithali is also at the number 1 spot in women’s world cricket in terms of runs in ODI cricket. However Test cricket has not been played much in women’s cricket, but if it had, it would not be wrong to say that like Sachin, Mithali would have been the highest run-scorer in this format too.

Indian women’s cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur can be compared with Indian captain Virat Kohli. Actually, both players are India’s match-winners, and they have a lot of dependence on them. Just as everyone’s eyes are on Virat Kohli after the openers flop in the Indian men’s team, similarly when the women’s cricket team’s opener flops, everyone’s eyes are fixed on Harmanpreet. Surprisingly, like Virat, Harmanpreet has also been awarded the Arjuna Award.