Records fall in cricket often enough that most don’t survive the news cycle they’re born in. Smriti Mandhana’s 124 against Hong Kong isn’t one of those.
It didn’t just win India a match – it moved her past a name that’s sat unchallenged atop women’s cricket for years.
Mandhana’s 64-ball 124 propelled India to a commanding 137-run win over Hong Kong and sealed their place in the Women’s Asia Cup T20 semi-finals. The scoreline alone would have made it a good day. What makes it a historic one is what the innings did to the record books.
Smriti Mandhana Changes What “Greatest Ever” Means
With that century, Mandhana became the all-time leading run-scorer in women’s international cricket across all formats, overtaking Mithali Raj’s long-standing mark of 10,868 runs.
Raj’s record wasn’t just old – it was the kind of number that defined an era, set by a player many considered the benchmark for the sport. Mandhana didn’t chip away at it. She walked past it in the middle of a group-stage win.
An 18th Century Puts Her in a Class of Her Own
The 124 also happened to be Mandhana’s 18th international century, which now makes her the outright leader on the women’s international centuries list.
Two separate all-time records, broken in the same innings, against the same bowling attack, on the same afternoon – that’s not the kind of coincidence that happens by accident. It’s the product of a player operating at a level the format hasn’t consistently seen before.
Smriti Mandhana Rankings Do the Talking
The ICC’s T20I batting rankings still have Mandhana chasing someone – she sits just 12 rating points behind West Indies’ Hayley Matthews for fourth place. It’s a strange sentence to write about the format’s new all-time leading scorer, and it says more about how rankings lag reality than about where Mandhana actually stands right now. If Asia Cup form holds, that gap closes fast.
Deepti Sharma Is Quietly Building Her Own Case
Mandhana isn’t the only Indian making the rankings move. Deepti Sharma has climbed two spots to sixth among the tournament’s leading bowlers while holding firm at fifth among all-rounders – a dual-threat profile that keeps showing up in India’s results without demanding the same headlines. Between Mandhana’s bat and Sharma’s all-round utility, India’s Asia Cup run is being built on two players peaking at exactly the right moment.
Why This Matters Beyond the Scorecard
Batting records in a format as young and fast-moving as T20I tend to get broken and re-broken within a few seasons. Overtaking a career-spanning, multi-format record like Raj’s is a different kind of milestone – one that measures volume and longevity, not just a hot run of form. Mandhana just posted the kind of number that used to take players a decade to reach. She got there in the middle of a group match against Hong Kong, with a semi-final still ahead of her.