A year belonging to Smriti Mandhana as Indian opener redefines run scoring, breaks her own record

Smriti Mandhana’s 2025 was not defined by one innings or one tournament but by a relentless accumulation of runs that reshaped the record books of women’s cricket. The Indian vice-captain turned consistency into dominance, producing performances across formats that elevated her from prolific scorer to a generational benchmark.

Her latest statement came on Sunday, December 28 against Sri-Lanka with a fluent 80‑run knock that earned her the Player of the Match award and pushed her into uncharted territory. With that innings, Mandhana became the first player in the world to score more than 1,700 runs in a single calendar year in women’s cricket, surpassing her own record of 1,659 runs in 35 matches set last year. In 2025 alone, she has amassed 1,703 runs in 32 matches, underlining a season built on sustained excellence rather than isolated peaks.

In 2025, Mandhana has piled up 1,362 runs in 23 ODIs and 341 runs in nine T20Is, remaining the only player in women’s cricket history to score more than 1,000 ODI runs in a calendar year, a mark that highlights both her durability and dominance at the top of the order.

Reflecting on her record-breaking year in an interview shared by BCCI Women, Mandhana said, “In cricket, you always start from zero scoreboard is always zero for zero. There are days where you win the match for the country, but there are days where you won't be able to get runs. You have to take both in stride.” She described the Women’s World Cup win as a “big, big achievement,” while emphasizing that the team is still a “work in progress,” rating their overall performance 7 out of 10 and pointing to areas like fitness, running between wickets, power hitting, and bowling execution for improvement.

The scale of her achievement becomes sharper when viewed against her recent past. In 2024, Mandhana had already enjoyed a productive year, scoring 149 runs in a lone Test, 747 runs in 13 ODIs, and 763 runs in 23 T20Is. Yet, 2025 saw her push those standards even further, transforming consistency into a historic run surge.

On the all-format calendar year chart, Mandhana now sits ahead of South Africa captain Laura Wolvaardt, who scored 1,593 runs across 37 matches last year. Wolvaardt had finished as the highest run-getter of the Women’s ODI World Cup 2025 and struck centuries in both the semifinal and final, making Mandhana’s leap beyond that tally even more striking.

The year has also been rich in individual milestones. Alongside breaking her own record for the most runs in a calendar year, Mandhana surpassed Harmanpreet Kaur to become India’s leading six-hitter in T20Is. She further joined the elite 10,000-run club in women’s cricket, achieving the landmark in just 280 innings, the fastest by any batter in the world.

In doing so, Mandhana became only the fourth player after Mithali Raj, Charlotte Edwards, and Suzie Bates to cross 10,000 international runs in women’s cricket. More than the numbers, however, it is the authority, focus, and inevitability of her run-making that defined the year. As she put it herself, “It’s been an amazing year for women’s cricket, and I hope we keep making our fans proud.”

In 2025, Smriti Mandhana did not just break records. She broke her own record, set new standards, and established herself as a reference point for excellence in the women’s game.