Smriti Mandhana goes past Mithali Raj with 124 in Dubai

Smriti Mandhana finished Thursday night in Dubai with 10,880 international runs, 12 more than Mithali Raj's career mark of 10,868. The extra runs came in a 124 off 64 balls against Hong Kong at the Women's Asia Cup, 14 fours and seven sixes, the highest individual score in the history of that tournament. India made 193 for five and bowled Hong Kong out for 56 in 16.2 overs. The win booked a semi-final.

Mandhana said she did not know the record was in play while she was batting. "I didn't know what's the exact runs," she told reporters. Looking back, she called it a good day for Indian cricket and then named the woman she had just passed. "Mithali-di has been such a legend and a role model, and we've all grown up watching her bat, so to go past her in the tally of runs is something I definitely never imagined to do. But happy that there are two Indians at the top two."

Raj answered on social media the same night. "Well deserved. I have watched you grow from a young player into one of the finest batters India has produced." Mandhana played a large share of her early career under Raj's captaincy. The two now sit first and second on the all-time women's international run list. New Zealand's Suzie Bates is third on 10,740.

The same innings moved other columns. It was Mandhana's 18th hundred across formats, one more than Meg Lanning and Laura Wolvaardt. She has 14 ODI centuries, two Test centuries and two T20I centuries, and she is now the first Indian woman with two T20I hundreds. She reached the run record in her 303rd international innings. She already held the fastest journey to 10,000 international runs, 280 innings. The 124 also gave her a 93rd score of fifty or more, level with Raj, and a record 37th fifty-plus in T20Is, ahead of Beth Mooney's 33.

Chamari Athapaththu's unbeaten 119 against Malaysia in Dambulla in 2024 had been the Asia Cup T20 record. Mandhana took that as well. India vice-captain is the title she carries into the semi-final. The middle order, she admitted, is still hunting for runs. She backed those teammates to adjust. The dressing-room problem and the record book problem are not the same job.

Women's international cricket has a short statistical memory. Raj's 10,868 looked out of reach when she retired because the calendar was thinner and the power game had not yet arrived. Mandhana is a left-handed opener who scores in T20 leagues on three continents and still plays Tests. The extra fixtures are part of why the number moved. The 124 off 64 is the other part. That is a strike rate of 193.75 in a match India had to win to stay in the tournament.

Hong Kong were overmatched. That does not delete the record. Run tallies count every opponent. What the bowling attack could not do is take the shot-making away. Seven sixes in a T20 innings at this level still have to clear a rope that is the same length for everyone.

The useful comparison is not only Raj. Lanning built her 17 hundreds in an Australian machine that played more high-quality cricket than anyone else. Wolvaardt is still adding to her pile. Mandhana passing both on the same night as she passed Raj is the detail that will sit in the record books after the Asia Cup is filed away.

India now play a semi-final with their vice-captain as the leading run-scorer in the women's game. That is a fact of Friday morning, 4 September. The next innings will not add another all-time record of this size. It will only add to a total that has already changed the list every Indian girl growing up on Raj's highlights will now read from the other end.