Mithali Raj and the Rise of Women's Sports in India 

Mithali Raj: My brother's coach, one day, he said, let me see this girl who's coming, turning out every day at six o'clock in the morning. Probably he's seen a bit of potential in me. And it was him who told my father. He said, like you know, it is better to invest in your daughter. She might go and play for India, but I don't see that happening to your son, but I see that the girl has that potential to play higher level of cricket. 

Makhtar Diop: I'm Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation, and this is Creative Development with IFC. Today, I am delighted to welcome Mithali Raj, one of the greatest female cricketers of all time.  Mithali, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. 

Mithali: Thank you so much for having me. 

Makhtar: For me, its amazing to meet with you, because when we talk about leadership, there's a lot of inspiration to be taken from leaders in sports. Tell us how it all started, the precursor of this movement of cricket for women?

Mithali: Well, I started playing cricket very young, at about nine and a half, 10-year-old, and cricket wasn't my decision. I was never a sports person.

Makhtar: You are not a sports person? 

Mithali: At ten years old I was like, I was not looking at sport to get into a profession. I was learning Indian classical dance, Bharatnatyam, so I was quite interested in becoming a dancer. As a kid, I was quite lazy. I love sleeping, you know. But my father had this background of Air Force. He was from Air Force, ex-servicemen, so all the children of the services, they understand that discipline is a cornerstone at home. And so my father, only to inculcate the habit of early rising, he said that, you know, I'll take her along with me to this academy where my brother used to learn cricket. He used to play cricket till a school level. So he used to go early in the morning for practice to this academy. So I used to tag along with him. So that was my first introduction to the sport and to cricket, where there were only boys running around in the academy, there were male coaches. I haven't seen a single girl who was among them, but because I had an older brother who was playing cricket, so I wanted to do exactly what he was into. So I told my father, like, I want to learn cricket. I want to play this sport. So the first time, he said, it's not for girls. Do you see any girls in the academy? So I don't think the sport is for girls. So I just left it there, because as a young kid, I didn't know much about… there's a national side…there are women cricketers who play for India. So I accepted that, you know, okay, it's not for girls. 

But my brother's coach, one day, he said, let me see this girl who's coming, turning out every day at six o'clock in the morning. Let me throw her a few tennis balls and see what she has. Probably he's seen a bit of potential in me for those six, seven balls that I played. And it was him who told my father. He said, like you know, it is better to invest in your daughter. She might go and play for India, but I don't see that happening to your son, because he's not too professional in terms of his commitment to the sport, but I see that the girl has that potential to play higher level of cricket. And it is on his recommendation that my father put me into cricket, but in a different Academy, because that Academy doesn't enroll girls. It was an exclusive boys camp. So that's how I got into sport, just by luck, by chance.

Makhtar: You said you were lazy! In fact, you were not lazy because you showed dedication. How do you reconcile this self-assessment of yours that you were lazy. While, in practice, you demonstrated that you were not…

Mithali:  But I was lazy is… because I hated getting up early in the morning. You know, I still, even now, like, you know, getting up early in the morning is pretty taxing to me. But because of that very reason, I got into sports, and I was, maybe I feel that, you know, I was very observant as a kid and very competitive. That was already ingrained in me, that, you know, I want to compete with my brother, compete with the boys around in the camp. So, I was competitive. But as a young kid, when you get into something which is relatively new, and the perks of, you know, being identified as, you know, the only girl who's playing the sport and in the school, also, like, you know, I started playing for my state level at about 10/11, years the same year I got big for the under 16 level and under 19. So those days, unlike the social media, it was only the newspapers that you get to see a small picture of you. And it was a big thing. So, for a young kid, you know, it was like a star feeling in the school like everybody identify you, recognize you. You know, you get a little bit of privilege from your teachers, from your principal. So, I think that probably also played a part for me to continue playing cricket. There are other factors, like, I used to leave home at four o'clock in the morning, you know, for my training. But all of that because I was getting recognized, in a way, and enjoying that attention, I was okay with getting up early in the morning and putting the hard yards into becoming a cricketer.

Makhtar: It's quite impressive what you said about how at school, nobody stops you. Everybody was supporting you, because sometimes, even at school, some people tell you “it's not a woman's sport” or “that will have an impact on your studies” and so forth. How come you found yourself in an environment where people are pretty supportive, from what I understand? 

Mithali: So our school was predominantly a government run school. A lot of importance was given to extracurricular activities. And when they know that, you know, I got into cricket, and the same year I represented the state. So when you have some articles about you in the newspaper even the school is getting named. And then you're part of the school team, you get into tournaments where the school participates and wins. So it's like a two-way street, where you know you as a player, also getting support from the school to pursue a sport, and the school also is getting the name, because you're going high on the rank. When I was going for my first series, my first debut tour, because coming from a middle-class family, obviously, finance was a big question, so my school also funded a part of the fee of the tour. And I've missed a lot of exams in school, and I would be the only girl giving exams in the summer holidays, because my school made that adjustment so they were able to understand, okay, she is growing as a cricketer. She is playing at different levels. So, as a school, that support was there for me.

Makhtar: It's amazing. So, tell me a little bit, when you start feeling that you are the leader of the group, the star player. How did you deal with that pressure?

Mithali: Well, I was always the youngest and the baby of the team, so I had a lot of seniors. Even for the Indian team, I made my debut as a 16-year-old, and my seniors were all about 28 to 30 year olds. So yes, the expectations were there. Expectations from my parents, my coaches, self-expectation about doing well, performing well, initially, as a youngster, I think it did weigh me down. I really never enjoyed that phase of, you know, being the youngest and performing. It was always like getting out there performing so that my coach and my father were happy about it. So it really didn't touch the internal chords of my heart, like, I've actually done something good. I've performed well. So I think at different stages in my life, like, you know, things have changed. Things have evolved. My belief has changed. As a 16-year-old, I dealt with pressure very differently. When I'm in my 20s, it was very different, because there's a bit of experience. Then in my 30s, it's again, a very different outlook to how I can use pressure to sort of propel me further, rather than pushing me down into the earth.

So I think as you age, as you grow older, I think you come up with different things to deal with expectations and pressure. But as a youngster, yes, I found it hard. Yeah, I did find it hard, because when you're a child prodigy, there's so much of pressure from external factors that you know you don't understand where you're heading, what you're doing. All you want to do is to find a place where you know you just want to be yourself. As a teenager, as a school going kid, I've never enjoyed school life because I was never there, having schoolmates or college life. I don't know what college life is, because all my school and college life was pretty much traveling, playing for the country, playing for state, working out on the field, putting in hours in training. These, this is what my life was growing up. But I but I guess I have probably sacrificed that part of it to reach where I am.

Makhtar: What you’re saying is very important. And I think for a younger athlete to hear from you how these things also have impacted you, and how people can take lessons from that.

Mithali: Probably we've never had sports psychologists to help the young, potentially talented athletes, like how we have today traveling with the team. The young athlete is left to deal with it on their own. There are some who probably are like a flash in the pan, like they survive for two years, three years, with that sort of pressure, and then somewhere sort of fizzle out. And there are some who, for whatever reason, the resilience, the courage to go on, and they have a bit of a longevity in the career. I did have my father constantly being my mentor in those early years of my career to deal with certain emotional decisions that one faces when they are in competitive environment. I left home at about 10 years old because it's a team sport, so you don't have your parents traveling with you, and I was on my own as a 10-year-old kid on tour. If I have to take a decision, I'm on my own. So you learn with trial and error sometimes, but you also need to have some support system. You have to have a support mechanism, which I had in terms of my father, which not everybody are fortunate at that point of time. But now, yes, things have changed a lot in sports, and you have a lot of help, like a sports psychologist, or people who travel with the team, and then they are there emotionally to support you if you're if you find yourself in the crossroads. 

Makhtar: So you built that resilience. You had a family which was extremely supportive. A dad who was a great mentor for you. You had this career where you broke all the records that people have seen. So what kept you motivated throughout your career to sustain that level of effort? Because for child prodigy, often at some point, it's very difficult to keep up that motivation. At some point, you just want to say, I need a year of break or two years break because it's too much, but you've been able to continue and sustain it, to push and take the leadership roles that you took in the national team. So, tell me what was the inner leadership skills that you had to continue pushing, pushing, pushing.

Mithali: Well, it's quite interesting that you know when you start very young, you cannot really have the motivation, the same sort of motivation for the longer time. There will be phases where you might feel like you don't have it in you to continue. My career is probably divided into two, in terms of pre-BCCI and post BCCI Board of Control for Cricket in India. So, the initial stage was where we had a different organization, women's Cricket Association of India. So that organization was running women's cricket in India until 2006 . That association was not financially so sound that they could give us International Series regularly, like every year we would get to play three or four series. There were times when for two years we wouldn't get to play an international series. So those phases gets very challenging for an athlete, because you're training to compete, but if you don't have tournaments to compete, what are you training for? So I think there the motivation level sort of deteriorates a little. Why are you pursuing? You're not getting paid to play for India. It's not a professional sport back then, and I pretty much emptied my dad's pocket getting to tour and investing in my equipment, getting a good quality bat leg guards, all of that. But for a middle-class family without money in the sport, it's very difficult because you're spending. You don't have any other job opportunities other than Indian railways, which is the only institution which gave jobs to women cricketers in those years. So, there was a huge question mark as to, why am I playing the sport? What am I getting back? Yes, I'm putting the hard yards. I'm playing for India. There is no recognition, there is no fame, there is no glory, there is no money and there is no financial support. So why are we playing? You know, these are the thoughts did cross my mind. 

But again, it was my dad's dream that I play for India. And so as I was competitive as a kid. So I didn't want it to be anywhere less than number one, right at the top. Even with all these factors, I still want to be there. If I'm if I'm competing, I have to be number one, nothing less. Then BCCI happened in 2007 we came under the BCCI fold, the richest body in world cricket.

Things definitely changed a lot. It took a little while even for BCCI to understand women's cricket. So they started a better structure of domestic circuit, and there was travel allowance, they started to look after women cricketers. I think that was a huge change, but I think we struggled a lot to get women's cricket recognized. Despite the performance, despite putting the same number of hours to train the sport women cricket, it wasn't a viable sport back then, because obviously it wasn't on television, and not many knew about the Indian Women's cricket team. So, it was a constant struggle for that. And if we talk about leadership, yes, I got captaincy when I was very young, when I was about 21/22 years old, and before that, for about three years, I was a deputy to my senior. So even my concept about leadership, funnily, when I was young, it resonated with power. Those years, we thought anybody who's heading an organization, who's leading a group of team had the power to change things, make careers, and also, like if someone comes into the wrong path, break careers. So I felt that that's what leadership is. Because I was young, I was a rookie captain. Didn't have much of experience, and my first assignment for the Indian team was a World Cup in 2005. But over the years, my concept of about leadership has also changed, evolved, I would say. There was a phase where I thought leaders are someone who have good strategy, good management skills, who organize things well. Then came a phase where I think a leadership would be more compassionate to their teammates, to people around. So I think again, it is the stages of what leader means to me and how I would want to lead a side. I've led India for about 17 years. That's quite a long period of time where I think even I have changed as a leader from 2005 until I retired in 2022. I have led three, four generation of players. I'm able to also understand the challenges of every generation. When I was young, I had my seniors. I had to lead former captains who were under me. And then there came a point where players of my own age, I led far more easier to do when you connect, when you have that equation, and then you have players who are junior to you, who've seen you as a role model. And then came a generation who were not born when I made my debut. So, the age gap is so much that, you know, it was a challenge for me to connect to them, you know. So, yes, as a leader. Also, I've gone through a lot of challenges. My beliefs in certain things have over the years. I had to tweak. You cannot be rigid. Saying that this is how I'm going to lead. It has also evolved me as a person, I would say. My own thought process has changed and evolved, yeah.

Makhtar: I'm quite impressed the way you're reflecting on your role as a leader. How much has the team you were leading has changed your way of thinking, those transitions from different stages of leadership? How the team you were leading brought you to think differently?

Mithali:  Well, say, the first three years of my captaincy, that's 2005 to 2007. So it was like my way or the highway sort of thing. I felt like I know everything, and the girls or the team has to follow. Then I was sacked for about three years. And I think looking back, that was the best thing to happen, because it broke that illusion in my mind that you know everybody has to follow me, and I know everything. So those three years which I spent as a player, playing for India, actually I started to interact a lot more with my teammates. I had lot of time, because when you're a captain, you have a lot of obligations to do media conference and all of the interviews and all of that. So, there's very little time that you can devote to your team and to yourself. And when I was not leading those three years, I think I had time, so I started to interact a lot with my teammates. I would throw questions like, what sort of a leader that you want to play for? So everybody had their own, you know, own reasons, and they came up with different factors. Like, this is what we want to see in a captain. I would love to play for a captain like this. So, I used to jot down all of that..

…and then I realized, if at all, if, by God's grace, if I happen to get captaincy back, these are the changes that I'm going to do to my leadership. And I did get my captaincy back in 2012 like about three, four years after, and the first thing I did was to sort of negate what people think about my leadership. Very often we think like, “What is she thinking? Am I leading?” Well, rather than thinking, “What is the requirement as a leader for you and for your team you know?” So forget what the world thinks about my leadership, because as long as I get results, that's what matters to the world.

If you give results today, you're great. Tomorrow, you don't the world puts you down. So why do you give so much time to people's opinions, to seek validation from people who've not gone through the grind? That was the one thing I've changed. And second is to start having a good communication with your team members, because they play for the team that you're leading, and you're no leader if you don't have a team. So it's very important to understand the role of your teammates, what they get to the table. Thirdly, I think it's very important when you have former captains under you, who you've played for and now, the tables are changed. They are playing for you that equation, because very often, in our line of work, when you are not leading and you've become a player or become a former captain and still playing active player, they tend to see it as demoted. But as a leader, if you're able to get them on the table, because they have experience, I might be five years into captaincy, but they probably have been playing much before me. They are senior to me, so the experience they have, I don't but I need those experience on the field, so it's important to have that sort of equation with the seniors, with the former captains. So even if it requires me to meet them halfway, I would do that.

Makhtar: If today you were appointed CEO of a business of a large company. How would you be applying your experience as a leader in cricket? You've told me so many important things. How would you be translating it in a world which is totally different?

Mithali: Well, first thing I would do is do my own homework about the organization, about people, and see like, what experience they have, you know, what backgrounds they come from. It's very important in India, because India is vast and diverse, and people come from different backgrounds, and they have a very different take perspective to life and to workplace. So as a CEO, my first job is to do my homework about the people that I'm going to lead, and secondly, try to have a very open communication, even if requires me to show my vulnerability to them. I'm a leader, I might not know everything, and I'm happy to get help. I will seek help. And there is any anything people should be open enough to communicate. They will not be judged. The big concept in India is when you talk your heart, or when you try to tell people as honestly as you can, you will be judged for it. So as a CEO, I'm going to make sure that whatever communication is being done, I will not be judging my own members as long as they are efficiently doing their work and gender has no place in that. You know, everybody, whoever is efficient, who get integrity on the table, those are the qualities that I'm looking for. 

Makhtar: You've been one of the precursors of equal pay in sports. The movement is going throughout the world. You have the women's World Cup in Australia - soccer. It was the big discussion and before - the World Cup before - actually in France, also it was the same discussion in women's soccer. And WNBA we see big talk today about equal pay. So tell us a little bit your take and as a progress which have been made in this area?

Mithali: I think pay equity has come a couple of years back. BCCI definitely has taken that revolutionary step of having equal pay for the men and the women cricketers of our country. I think that definitely had its own ripple effect on the other organizations, other boards as well. 

Makhtar: So other boards are now thinking of the same agenda.

Mithali: Yes, like, you know, they get paid the same amount when they play ODI or a T 20 or a test match. Much before that? I think a lot of talk definitely was about why the women are not being paid so much as the men, because we also play same formats. May not be regularly as the men do, because they play, say, about six, seven series in a year, and we probably about two, three series in a year. But when it comes to the skill aspect, or training, or, you know, the formats, whether it is playing a four day test or ODI, which is a 50 over, even in men and women, T20s, a similar overs, so the game time is, is the same. So why the players don't get paid enough, the women athletes, the women cricketers? A lot was spoken about it. I think our Honorable Secretary, Jay Shah was he was very particular and was very keen to develop women's cricket when he became Secretary of BCCI. And it is under his leadership that, you know, the step was taken. And as as a player, as a senior player, there was one aspect that I really worked for, was to allow the players to play leagues across the world. But the women don't really get enough exposure playing international series until then. So the league was something that I felt like, you know, the BCII’s should change their rule here for the women. Since we don't have a league of our own, we should be allowed to play other leagues. So that happened in again, in 2016. So I think having to work towards getting these things through the board definitely took time, but I was quite happy that the board was also very reciprocative in understanding the plight of the women cricketers. And now this year, we had the second season of the Indian Women's Premier League, and it's a huge success. It's only going to grow and strength year after year. 

Makhtar: It’s great to see worldwide, across all sports, and now, particularly team sports that you have a WNBA, you are seeing it in women's soccer, football, it breaks all the prejudices that people had in the past. Saying “oh those league will not be able to be sustainable, you will not have no chance for it, no sponsor. Don't put money there because, in fact, you are not enough people watching.” All this, in fact, this happened to be untrue, as you are demonstrated, and they have taken people like you to be really as a precursor and to really drive this agenda. And for that, I think not only is a cricket community that owes you a lot, but I think the sports world owes you a lot because it takes people like you to make that difference, to show that leadership, to show that resilience. Because it's not easy. Is there some things that you would have liked to do, and you haven't done?

Mithali: As a woman cricketer or as an individual player?

Makhtar: Both

Mithali: Both, okay. So if I have to go back in time, I would say I would love to relive my debut game, because as a 16-year-old and today's 16-year-old, they're completely different. Today's 16-year-old comes with a lot of exposure to the world already, and they are quite mature. And I was a 16-year-old, and I felt pinned down with a lot of expectations. I, you know, I didn't understand the occasion, but the joy of scoring 100 on your debut, I probably didn't feel it. And because I was just relieved that I've scored 100 my father would be happy, you know, as a 16-year-old, that was my emotion. So if I have to go back in time, I would say that I would just take a moment for my own self that I've scored 100 and have that personal moment of joy of playing the sport. And as a women cricketer, I would say, I wish the shift in the mindset would have happened much before. It took so long for people to accept women playing cricket and support the sport. We missed out on a lot many talented young women in those years who would have added a lot more to the sport. Just unfortunate they didn't get the support from their immediate family members, or bogged down by society pressure and had to sort of move away from the sport despite the passion they had to play the sport. So that is something I wish it happened.

Makhtar: What is your next big project? What do you want to focus in the coming years?

Mithali: I think my focus definitely would be to invest a lot more in the grassroot level, because I'm a product of school cricket. Very rarely a girl can say that, you know, she's played school level. I've played and then, for whatever reason, it had to discontinue, because there were not much of funds. But now with money pouring into the sport through the league and a lot of private sectors are taking initiative to tap talent into the interiors of our country, I think if we could revive school sport, like get the girls to play that level, we will probably increase a pool of players. So it will be at some point where men's cricket is today is also because of the school level. There's under 15, under 16, under 12. But for women, it starts at under 16, you know. So, I think we need to have girls taking up at that level so that we have a lot more girls coming up the rank and that the pool increases at the top.

Makhtar: I am a big fan of school sport. I believe really in it, and I think that you'll be making big difference by helping people to think about it and put the infrastructure and systems in place. Because it's true that I did sports in my youth, and I know the importance of it as IFC he start looking at it again and think about sports and. development. There is a commission there on sports and development, and they start looking a little bit more about school sports, how you can be supported again.

Mithali: And especially for girls in India, it's a very different take. You want to completely get into professional setup, but playing some sport in school, it helps in your overall development, in your personality, especially in India, when girls are told like, you know, to be calm, to be quiet, to have that sort of a demeanor. Playing sport, you can develop the resilience that is required, the spirit, the strong spirit that the girls require to face the world when they pass out of school. 

So only for that particular reason also, I would encourage parents to put the girls in some sport, even for five years or six years. They can choose any other field when they pass out of school, but to have that experience of playing sport, team sport, individual sport. It teaches you, they say, the sportsman spirit. It teaches you flexibility. It teaches you adaptation. So I mean, what you can learn through sports, maybe you will spend years learning through academics.

Makhtar:  You summarize it so nicely. And I and I think that you have left a very strong message. And I think also the business community and the business leader have to learn a lot from both leaders, because I think that there's so much resilience, discipline, focus, strategy in sports, either as a player or the coach, and personally, my experience in sports has helped a lot in my job as a business leader, because you can refer to some of the situation is a local room, and what you heard there and say, “Okay, this is maybe the way you look at things, instead of just reading it in a book or learning the you know, the way to manage people,” because you have to touch emotions, result, drive, immediate change of tactics, and that's something that the sport is teaching you. So thanks so very much for taking the time to this conversation, and, more importantly, for everything you have done for the sports in the world. A lot of people are looking up to you internationally, and I hope that you continue doing what you are doing, and IFC will be happy to see if there is any opportunity we can have to collaborate with you as a leader, and you have shown throughout your career that you were as a great leader. So thank you so much.

Mithali: Thank you so much for having me.

Makhtar: Thank you so much. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your network and tell a friend you.