India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana joined an elite club on Sunday, becoming only the second Indian woman after Mithali Raj and the fastest ever to surpass 10,000 international runs. Smriti, who made her India debut against Bangladesh in April 2013, needed 27 runs to reach the milestone in the fourth T20I against Sri Lanka at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram. She achieved it in just 20 balls and went on to score a brilliant 80 off 48 deliveries, hitting 11 fours and three sixes at a strike rate of 170.2, marking her 32nd fifty in international cricket.
With this achievement, Smriti joins New Zealand’s Suzie Bates and former England captain Charlotte Edwards as the only other women to cross 10,000 international runs. Her career statistics are equally impressive: 629 runs in seven Tests, 5,322 runs in 117 ODIs, and the chance to surpass Mithali Raj’s all-time record of 10,868 international runs. Smriti had already etched her name in T20I history, becoming the first Indian and second overall after Suzie Bates to reach 4,000 runs in Women’s T20Is during the series opener against Sri Lanka in Visakhapatnam. The left-handed opener was also a key figure in India’s victorious Women’s ODI World Cup campaign, scoring 434 runs in nine innings at an average of 54.25. She finished 2025 as the highest run-scorer in ODIs, amassing 1,362 runs across 23 innings, including five fifties and five centuries. Smriti also became the first Indian woman to score a century in all three formats of the game. After the five-match T20I series concludes on December 30, Smriti will lead Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the 2026 Women’s Premier League, which kicks off on January 9. RCB will face Harmanpreet Kaur’s Mumbai Indians in the opening match at DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai.
