1,000 women’s ODI runs in a year: Why no one has done it yet, and why three could do it in 2025

At the World Cup on Thursday, India’s Smriti Mandhana set a new world record. A skip down the track, and a swing through the line sailed back over Ayabonga Khaka’s head for six.

That took her tally of runs in ODI cricket this year to 972, the most ever recorded by a woman in a single calendar year in the format.

The milestone of 1,000 in a year remains very much in sight. With four more World Cup games scheduled, Mandhana only needs another 18 runs to get there. Her opening partner Pratika Rawal is on 773, and South Africa opener Tazmin Brits has 749. That makes at least three players who have a realistic shot of getting to the mark this year.

Also read: Tazmin Brits’ record-breaking century reaffirms South Africa’s World Cup ambitions

Most runs in a calendar year – women's ODIs

As of October 10, 2025

The years 2016, 2017 and 2022 are the only ones to have three players scoring in excess of 700. Now, 2025 could have two more by the end of the ongoing tournament, with Pakistan’s Sidra Amin (634) and India’s Harleen Deol (551) both contenders.

There’s no surprise that three World Cup years are on this list – after all, the tournament generally brings a few extra games, for players to rack up counting stats like this one.

Why has no woman scored 1,000 ODI runs in a year?

The first Women’s World Cup was organised in 1973, two years before the men’s. The men played ODIs first, in 1971, but only 15 matches were played worldwide in four years before the first World Cup.

But in stark contrast to the women’s game, men’s ODIs have seen a batter score 1,000 runs in a calendar year on 149 occasions. Eight of them were run tallies of over 1,500 runs.

Read more: Why all-female World Cup umpiring panel isn't the gender equality win it looks like

Part of this is down to the disparity in the number of matches. The most ODIs any women’s team has played in a single year is 24, by England in 2000. Take that as the cut-off, and you see that only 28 men have crossed 1,000 in a year, in 24 games or fewer.

Is the rise in run-scoring on the women’s side in recent years down to an increase in scheduled matches?

Not quite.

In the 21st century, no team has really had a steady or significant increase in the number of ODIs they play. India, for example, have played 17 this year, with at least four more to come. This is not far from the past; they played 23 in 2006 and 20 in 2017.

Much of this is down to the balancing act with T20Is – whichever format has a World Cup on the horizon usually takes precedence.

There have been more matches in the sense that if not for this balance, we would likely have seen an increase. But purely from an ODI point of view, parity with the men on this front is still not quite there, and therefore not a strong reason for the run-scoring spike.

Biological differences do play a part; players going through male puberty benefit from the effects of increased testosterone. It means batters have higher muscle mass, meaning they naturally have more power, and largely face bowlers that give them more pace on the ball. Faster balls plus harder hits equals more boundaries, and a higher rate of run-scoring.

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But these differences have always existed, and still do, meaning it still doesn’t fully explain why the women’s game is seeing an uptick now.

The most significant change now, is potentially related. These differences can be bridged to an extent. But that is less a question of biology, and more of exposure and opportunity, which has been (and continues to be) a constantly-applied handbrake on the vehicle of women’s cricket.

What has changed to put three players on the brink of 1,000?

“The 2010s have the sort of support staff that the 2000s did not,” former India skipper Mithali Raj said in an interview where she was asked whether she would prefer to lead an Indian side from the 2000s, or the 2010s – implying that the India’s 2000s batch was no less in terms of talent.

“The kind of exposure the 2010s have in terms of camps, the facilities… having experts like a bowling coach, fielding coach who get expert views about the game and help them prepare. I would like to give the same facilities to the 2000s, and see with the sort of talent they have, where they would stand.”

While Raj’s point refers to India, it does mirror the wider trend of increased support for women’s cricket in the form of an increasingly professional structure over the last 10-15 years – starting with Australia, who increased the minimum value of a women’s cricket central contract by a whopping 400 per cent in 2013.

In a less professional era, women would have to balance playing cricket with a day job, and/or in most societies – patriarchal ones – domestic duties such as taking care of the house and children. True financial parity with the men’s game is still a ways away, but by making cricket a more viable money-making endeavour, it allows players to commit more of their time and effort into the game.

That in turn leads to more time in the gym or in the nets, with more specialised training – physical, mental, tactical and technical – based on expert advice. In the 2020s, the latest boost in this aspect has been the focus on specific power-hitting training; once again, a resource largely available to the men before the women.

Mandhana, Brits and Rawal have played most of their top-level cricket against this professional backdrop; Mandhana perhaps less so, but things have only gotten better as she has entered her prime. Brits and Rawal might have benefitted from their pasts as javelin thrower and basketballer respectively – giving them a grounding in athletics early on in their lives before cricketing skills were “added”, so to speak, towards the end of the 2010s and the 2020s. Even Belinda Clark, the record holder before Mandhana, started tennis training before taking up cricket.

The 42 years between 1973 and 2015 saw just six individual years with 700-plus runs, and two of them were from the supremely talented Clark. The nine years since, have seen 13 from 12 different players. It is a wider-ranging and – in all likelihood – a more sustainable phenomenon. If things continue to trend in this direction, 1,000 may well go from being seemingly unattainable to more of a check-box.

Milestones like these do not always measure the full worth of a player, in the sense that Mandhana, for example, will be no lesser for scoring 990 runs this year compared to 1,000. But these are the kinds of numbers that broadcasters love, and are enough of a common denominator to capture the attention of the casual fan. Ultimately, these help the game’s popularity, and that is vital for the health of the sport.

More can still be done to encourage the growth of professionalism in women’s cricket and the aforementioned incentive, if nothing else, should be a driving force.

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