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What's the story?
Cricketing great and captain of the Indian women's cricket team Mithali Raj was awarded the Sportswoman of the Year (Team sports) award at the Indian Sports Honours on Saturday. Raj, who took home the award ahead of four other nominees, posted a picture of the trophy on her Instagram account, confirming her excellent achievement.
In case you didn't know
The inaugural Indian Sports Honours took place on November 11 at a glittering ceremony in Mumbai and were organized by the RP-SG group and Virat Kohli Foundation.
Along with a host of sporting superstars such as PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Sania Mirza, etc, along with host, Virat Kohli. Also present at the ceremony were some Bollywood superstars in the form Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra.
The heart of the matter
The Indian captain won the award ahead of two other cricket stars and her teammates - Deepti Sharma and Harmanpreet Kaur, along with two members of the Indian women's hockey team - Deepika Thakur and Rani Rampal.
The jury, that decided the winners, consisted of some of the biggest names in Indian sport in the form of Pullela Gopichand, Mahesh Bhupathi, PT Usha, Anjali Bhagwat and Arjun Halappa, along with Sanjiv Goenka, chairman of the RP-SG group.
Raj is widely considered to be one of the greatest batters in the history of the sport and is the only female cricketer to score more than 6000 runs in ODI cricket. She is also the first player to score seven straight half-centuries in ODIs.
What's next?
The Indian women's cricket team will play their next series in South Africa in February 2018 and leading the side will be Mithali Raj.
Author's take
Raj has easily been one of India's most outstanding athletes at the world stage and her record in ODI cricket is second to none. She thoroughly deserves the award!
