Indian opener Smriti Mandhana admitted she never imagined going past Mithali Raj’s tally of runs in women’s internationals. The left-hander scored a fine knock of 124 runs off just 64 balls against Hong Kong to help her team post a total of 193-5 on the board.

With the help of this knock, Mandhana went past Mithali Raj’s record of most runs in women’s cricket. The India vice-captain also became the first Indian woman with two T20I centuries.

Mandhana leapfrogged Mithali’s previous record of 10,868 international runs during India’s 137-run win at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Thursday.

“Mithali-di has been such a legend and a role model, and we’ve all grown up watching her bat. So, to go past her in the tally of runs, I definitely never imagined to do that. But happy that there are two Indians at the top two,” Mandhana said while speaking to BCCI.

The flamboyant batter admitted she was not aware of the record and came to know about it later on.

“Till I was batting, I didn’t know what record it was because I didn’t know the exact runs or all of that. But yeah, looking back, one of a very good day for Indian cricket, I would say,” she said.

Mandhana’s century was the 18th of his international career as she went past former Australian skipper Meg Lanning’s record of 17 hundreds.

“Two of the legends of women’s cricket — Meg Lanning and Mithali Raj — genuinely, these are the two people whom I have grown up watching a lot. I’ve tried to take a lot of things from them as batters.”

“Really happy that I could go past them in whatever ways, but again, it’s just a stat, I would say.”

India will next face Pakistan in their final group-stage match of the Women’s Asia Cup on September 5.