Punam Raut

An elegant opener who made her way from Mumbai’s Chawl to the Lord’s cricket stadium, Punam Raut is a professional cricketer for the India Women’s national team. Known for playing long innings at the top of the order, she started playing cricket at the age of just 12.

After the sudden demise of her mother, she was encouraged by her father to just play cricket and focus on her game which saw her selected in the Mumbai U-14 and U-19 squad in her very first trial.

Punam went on to play for the Railways team in her early days and later debuted for the Indian national team against Windies on March 19, 2009, in which she got out for a duck. Her career-defining moment came in the 2012-13 domestic season when she scored at a mammoth average of over 150 which helped her to an early call-up to the national squad. Soon after that, she became a mainstay and a crucial player at the opening position for India.

In the 2016-17 One-day domestic season, Punam scored 123 runs in 4 innings including 102 unbeaten against Delhi. Her memorable innings saw the Railways regaining the domestic title.

Punam Raut and Deepti Sharma scripted history on May 15, 2017 becoming the first cricketing pair to share a 300-run opening partnership in Women’s ODIs. They set the record at the league match of the Women’s Quadrangular Series in South Africa, posting 320-runs for the first wicket in 45.3 overs against Ireland. They both also beat the standing men’s record in ODIs of 286 by Upul Tharanga and Sanath Jayasuriya. 

Punam became an overnight sensation after an incredible series performance in the 2018 Women’s World Cup, where she played one of the most consistent knocks of her career. She played a crucial innings of 83 in the opening match against England to guide India to an easy 7-wickets victory. Her best knock came in the group match against Australia when she scored her maiden World Cup century, (106 runs) but it all went in vain as India ended up on the losing side. In the final against England, she was the highest run-getter in that match scoring 86 runs but her side fell short of the target and ended an inspiring run in the World Cup.

Having played three world cups and four T20 World Cups, Punam Raut has been in the national side for a long time even seeing herself replaced by the youngsters in the shortest format. Acquiring the status for being too slow, she crawled to 7 runs of just 31 balls with no boundary, and the scratchy start notwithstanding, Raut turned a corner in that game, finishing on an unbeaten 89 off 62 balls in the recently concluded limited-over series against South Africa.

(As of March 2021)