Dear Mithali Raj,
First of all, let’s get one thing straight – You are an icon, not only for Indian cricket but for India’s women as well. A crusader who has the ability to take youngsters under your wing and transform them to fight for the Blue jersey like it was their birth right.
In many ways, you are the reason a lot of Indian women are choosing to break barriers and look at sport as an avenue for their careers. Take a bow.
Also, if women’s cricket, or women’s sport in India was given as much importance as their male counterparts, you are easily on par with the greatest athletes our game has seen. I mean, records do speak volumes right? Isn’t that why we maintain and look to break them? First woman to score 6,000 ODI runs, the highest scorer in the women’s game and the first player in any format to score seven consecutive fifties is really an achievement fit to go down in stone as the greatest.
Instead, what do you get in return?
- Treacherous keyboard warriors calling you a pornstar because you choose to wear a gorgeous dress.
- Unwanted cowards who dare to call you out because you had a photo taken with a sweaty armpit.The same sweat that made you one of the greatest cricketers the game has ever seen was ridiculed just so that one person could feel better about berating a woman, regardless of her achievements.
Stay classy:
The biggest and most heartening factor about you is your class. As a batsman and as a person. It takes another level of mental toughness to deal with such crass nonsense but you do it with a smile and with a swagger only you are capable of.
You are one of our greatest captains and it reflects in the way you handle yourself – Composed, calculated and most importantly brave. A leader only leads from the front, but you are not just leading, but setting an example.
This is of course, a larger argument on the ethos of feminism and how suppressed Indian women are starting to speak up – Something that is very, very important thanks to the influx of social media and education.
Please don’t pay attention to the trolls, Mithali, you can wear whatever you want because firstly, you are an adult and secondly, nobody has the right to morally police another woman, either on social media or otherwise.
Keep bringing that touch of feminine ingenuity to the Gentleman’s game, Mithali; we’ve got your back.
Regards,
An Indian cricket fan.
