When Smriti Mandhana scored her 18th international century against Hong Kong on the Ladies’s T20 Asia Cup in Dubai on Thursday (September 3, 2026) — in simply 57 balls — she set a brand new file for scoring the very best variety of centuries in ladies’s worldwide cricket throughout all codecs.
Nevertheless, the century, which cemented India’s victory within the match and broke Australian Meg Lanning and South African Laura Wolvaardt’s jointly-held file of 17 worldwide centuries, didn’t finish Smriti’s file breaking spree.
By the point she was run out for 124, she had overtaken her former captain Mithali Raj’s to grow to be the very best run-scorer in ladies’s worldwide cricket. She had taken her profession tally to 10,880 runs, 12 greater than Mithali’s beforehand held file of 10,868 runs. Her rating was additionally the very best within the historical past of the Ladies’s T20 Asia Cup, surpassing Chamari Athapaththu’s 119 not out from 2024.
Her seven sixes in opposition to Hong Kong took her profession tally to 95, making her the main six-hitter for India in ladies’s T20Is and the fourth-highest on the planet.
These seven sixes have been additionally the second-most by an Indian girl in a single T20I innings, behind Harmanpreet Kaur’s eight throughout her century in opposition to New Zealand. Together with her second T20I hundred, Smriti turned the primary Indian girl to attain a number of centuries within the format. She additionally equalled Mithali’s file of 93 fifty-plus scores throughout worldwide cricket
The tempo
Mandhana’s century-making was a sluggish burn earlier than it turned a dash. Her first hundred got here in her thirty second worldwide batting innings in 2016, but it surely took 115 extra innings and 5 years to succeed in her fifth century.
She wanted one other 92 extra innings to get to 10, after which the dash began. Simply 18 innings separated her tenth and 14th centuries, 9 extra took her to fifteen, and solely seven extra to 17, when she equalled Meg and Laura’s file. Then there was a pause, earlier than she broke their file in her 303rd worldwide innings. Ten of her 18 centuries got here throughout the final two years.
That acceleration turns into much more hanging when positioned alongside the opposite prime 5 century-makers. Meg Lanning reached 5 tons of in 70 innings and 10 in 123, nearly half the variety of 239 innings that Smriti took to attain her tenth century.
All the opposite 4 additionally crossed the milestone of ten centuries earlier than their 2 hundredth innings. Laura Wolvaardt took 144 innings to succeed in 5, however solely 18 extra to get to 10 and one other 44 to succeed in 15. Suzie Bates reached 5 in 105 innings and 10 in 199, whereas Tammy Beaumont reached these marks in 88 and 181. Hayley Matthews reached her fifth century in 156 innings and her tenth in 189. However for Smriti, who was slower to cross the early milestones, the efficiency soared after she crossed her 200 innings.
The place the tons of got here from
Of Smriti’s 18 centuries, 14 have are available in ODIs, two in Exams and two in T20Is. That’s hanging on condition that she has performed extra T20Is than ODIs — 173 in contrast with 120, predominantly because the opening batter in each the codecs.
In ODIs, she has scored 5,411 runs and 14 tons of. In 16 Take a look at innings, she has two tons of and averages 52.53. In 167 T20I innings, she has 4,681 runs. Throughout all three codecs, she has 10,880 runs, 75 fifties and a median of 38.86, displaying that her observe file is constructed on consistency as a lot as a number of spectacular peaks.
Furthermore, it’s the tempo at which she has gathered her runs that basically units her aside. Smriti’s 10,880 runs have are available in 303 worldwide batting innings — fewer than any of the opposite 4 gamers among the many 5 main run-scorers, all of whom besides Stafanie Taylor are actually retired from worldwide cricket.
Mithali wanted 314 innings to make 10,868 runs, Stafanie 307 for 10,005, Charlotte Edwards 316 for 10,273 and Suzie Bates 352 for 10,740.
Her profession worldwide strike price of 99.57 is one other outlier. It’s almost 10 factors larger than Suzie, the following quickest among the many 5, and greater than 30 factors larger than Mithali Raj. She had already grow to be the quickest girl to succeed in 10,000 worldwide runs, doing so in 281 innings.
Batting common (38.86) is the one indicator the place Smriti lags behind, however that too solely in opposition to her compatriot and inspiration Mithali, who is way forward than the opposite prime scorers with a median of 46.64. Smriti is in the identical league because the others with solely the previous West Indies captain Stafanie holding a slightly larger batting common of 40.02.
A couple of years again, she had mentioned that her mom taught her to persevere — “to go on until reaching the highest”. She additionally mentioned she wished to be the most effective batter on the planet. At simply 30, she has now reached a somewhat literal model of that ambition, however as she mentioned within the press convention after the Hong Kong match that “it’s simply the beginning”.
devyanshi.b@thehindu.co.in
Printed – September 05, 2026 02:28 pm IST
