IND vs SA T20 World Cup 2022: 'Excited' Mithali Raj set to make COMMENTARY debut

Former captain of the Indian women's cricket team and one of the greatest players in women's cricket, Mithali Raj, is all set to start her second innings post-retirement today. Mithali will make her commentary debut during India's encounter with South Africa in the T20 World Cup match today. The announcement regarding this was made by Star Sports yesterday. Star Sports is the official broadcaster of the ICC T20 World Cup 2022.

The match between India and South Africa will take place in Perth from 4.30 pm. Reacting to the Star Sport's announcement, Mithali said that she is excited to start her commentary debut.

"Can’t wait to get into the commentary box tomorrow for the #INDvSA game. Excited! Let’s do this!" tweeted Mithali.

Can’t wait to get into the commentary box tomorrow for the #INDvSA game.

Excited!
Let’s do this!  https://t.co/U9fIKZOMNS — Mithali Raj (@M_Raj03) October 29, 2022

Mithali will be another key addition to the Star Sports commentary jewels which has big names like Sunil Gavaskar, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Harsha Bhogle, Ian Smith and Isa Guha.

Mithali captained India to the finals of the 2005 and 2017 50-over World Cups. She retired from international cricket in June this year. She hung her boots after amassing 7805 runs in 232 ODIs, 699 runs in Tests and 2364 runs in T20I cricket. Raj retired from the T20s in 2019. It's also expected that Mithali could feature in the inaugural Women's IPL, slated for next year. In July 2021, Mithali became the leading run-getter in women's internationals surpassing England's Charlotte Edwards (10,273 runs). Edwards and Raj remain the only two women cricketers to have breached the 10,000 run mark. Mithali has 71 fifty-plus scores in ODIs and 17 fifty-plus scores in T20Is.

The Indian Team's match against South Africa is another crucial match for both teams. While a victory for Team India will help them retain the top spot, a win for South Africa will take their points tally to 5, thus achieving the top spot in the points table. While India won the two matches it played in this tournament, South Africa won one against Bangladesh while the second match against Zimbabwe was washed out and points were shared.