When Mithali Raj topped the emoji leaderboard on Twitter

Over the years, cricket fans and pundits all across the globe have become quite well-versed with Mithali Raj topping the run scoring charts for India almost every time she walks out to bat. Such has been her dominance in the world of cricket that she is the leading run scorer in Women’s ODI with quite some margin. But, did you know that Mithali Raj once topped an emoji leaderboard as well?

This unique achievement transpired during the 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup, where India finished runners up. The International Cricket Council had then collaborated with the microblogging site, Twitter, to come up with custom emojis of the captains of each team. The users had to use hashtags corresponding to the player’s name to unlock and use the emojis. During this, Mithali Raj also became the first Indian woman cricketer to have a custom emoji in her name.

The World Cup was quite a happening one for Raj as she led India to the final of the tournament and ended as the second highest run scorer with 409 runs at an average of 45.44 runs per match. Besides during the course of the tournament, she also overtook former England captain, Charlotte Edwards, to become the highest run getter in the history of Women’s ODI cricket.

Unlock #WWC17 captain emojis as part of our unprecedented coverage of the women's game with @TwitterSports!

More ➡ https://t.co/zomBtgHTbf pic.twitter.com/MuDENmsF0u

— ICC (@ICC) June 24, 2017

These personal achievements and the calmness before going to bat (she was seen reading Rumi in the pavilion while waiting for her turn) coupled with India’s stellar run in the tournament left fans in awe of Raj’s persona. This was translated into some social media points for the Indian skipper as fans and experts went gaga over her, using the custom emojis to show their support and affection.

Mithali Raj ended the tournament at the top of emoji leaderboard with her emoji being the one which was tweeted the most. She was closely followed by the South African skipper Dane Van Niekerk and Pakistan captain Sana Mir.

The Women’s ODI World Cup 2017 was the first ever international sporting event to have the emojis of captain as a special feature on Twitter. The tweet count during the tournament also saw an increase with over eighteen times more tweets using the official hashtag as compared to the previous edition.

Mithali Raj won the emoji leaderboard with 84% of all the captain emoji tweets mentioning her hashtag.

Also read: Women’s IPL 2020: Kashvee Gautam, from being inspired by Jhulan Goswami to playing alongside her