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Picture Credit: Twitter

Indian Women’s team batter Vellaswamy Ramu Vanitha has announced her retirement from all formats of cricket. Vanitha made her One Day International and T20I debut against Sri Lanka in Visakhapatnam in January 2014. Since then, she has played six one day internationals and 16 T20 matches in her career scoring while scoring 301 runs in total.

On the domestic circuit, Vanitha has played for Karnataka where she has scored 1410 runs in both List A and T20 games. In the one-dayers, she has a high score of 73 not out against Bengal. Whereas in the 20-over format, her high score is 93 off 63 balls with 14 fours and a strike rate of 147.62.

In her announcement, Vanitha started off by saying, “19 years ago, when I started playing cricket, I was just a little girl who loved sport. Even to this day, my love for cricket remains the same. What's changing is direction. My heart says continue playing, my body says stop and I've decided to listen to the latter. Time is ripe to hang my boots.”

She went on to thank her family and friends who were very supportive in this process. Vanitha then talked about her first coach Irfan sir and said, “Irfan sir who guided me, honed my skills in my early years.” Vanitha then expressed her gratitude towards her coaches from Karnataka and the National Cricket Academy.

Vanitha also mentioned senior Indian team players like Mithali Raj and Jhulun Goswami who had supported her on and off the field. She said, “Jhulan for encouraging me from time to time and Mithali, she will always be my skipper! I look up to her, both on and off the field. Her humility, grace and respect for everyone are life lessons.”

Check out V.R. Vanitha's retirement post here:

She also thanked the State associations of West Bengal and Karnataka and her teammates from the state teams. She said, “I would also like to thank my State associations - Karnataka State Cricket Association and Cricket Association of Bengal, its office bearers, state Captains, Coaches, S&Cs, Physiotherapists, ground-staff and people who believe in women's cricket. Lastly, I want to thank my Karnataka teammates with whom I have memories of a lifetime.”

Vanitha finished her announcement by talking about how she wants to groom the next generation of players in the next chapter of her life. She said, “The next chapter of my life I would like to dedicate to grooming young talents in Cricket.”