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Women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj was seen calmly reading a book before coming on to score a record 7th consecutive ODI fifty as India opened their Women’s World Cup campaign with a
solid win against England in Derby. While her innings (71 runs) certainly grabbed headlines because it was a record-breaking feat, social media did not miss the fact that she was not biting
her nails or waiting anxiously to bat, but reading a book in total zen. She was also pretty game when the ICC asked her in an interview about her pre-game regime of reading. > “It’s a
habit that I read a lot and I do that even before going > into batting. I do this not only in International matches, but in > domestic matches too and that is probably what I was
doing. It is > just new because the match is being televised. So people got to know > now,” she said, adding that it helped her calm any nerves before > going out in the middle.
You’ll see her reading from a Kindle usually – but Mithali said that those were not allowed – so she grabbed a book from the fielding coach. > yes… I saw the match against england and
very surprised to watch > this moment on TV ,before Mithali came to crease she was reading a > book.. https://t.co/btjuLVnCTq > — Anand Joshi (@anandjoshi_295) June 27, 2017 >
“Since Kindle is not allowed, so I had to borrow books from the > fielding coach. He gave me this book by Rumi on ‘life’s > essentials’. So I was just reading that.” Mithali is set to
become the first woman cricketer to reach 6000 ODI runs – the captain is currently on 5852 runs from 178 matches. Feature image source: Twitter/Star Sports