When Smriti Mandhana scored her 18th international century against Hong Kong at the Women’s T20 Asia Cup in Dubai on Thursday (September 3, 2026) — in just 57 balls — she had set a new record for scoring the highest number of centuries in women’s international cricket across all formats.
Those seven sixes were also the second-most by an Indian woman in a single T20I innings, behind Harmanpreet Kaur’s eight during her century against New Zealand. With her second T20I hundred, Smriti became the first Indian woman to score multiple centuries in the format. However, the century, which cemented India’s victory in the match and broke Australian Meg Lanning and South African Laura Wolvaardt’s jointly-held record of 17 international centuries, did not end Smriti’s record breaking spree. By the time she was run out for 124, she had overtaken her former captain Mithali Raj’s to become the highest run-scorer in women’s international cricket. She had taken her career tally to 10,880 runs, 12 more than Mithali’s previously held record of 10,868 runs. Her score was also the highest in the history of the Women’s T20 Asia Cup, surpassing Chamari Athapaththu’s 119 not out from 2024. She also equalled Mithali’s record of 93 fifty-plus scores across international cricket That acceleration becomes even more striking when placed alongside the other top five century-makers. Meg Lanning reached five hundreds in 70 innings and 10 in 123, just about half the number of 239 innings that Smriti took to score her tenth century.
In ODIs, she has scored 5,411 runs and 14 hundreds. In 16 Test innings, she has two hundreds and averages 52.53. In 167 T20I innings, she has 4,681 runs. Across all three formats, she has 10,880 runs, 75 fifties and an average of 38.86, showing that her track record is built on consistency as much as several spectacular peaks. Batting average (38.86) is the only indicator where Smriti lags behind, but that too only against her compatriot and inspiration Mithali, who is far ahead than the other top scorers with an average of 46.64. Smriti is in the same league as the others with only the former West Indies captain Stafanie holding a marginally higher batting average of 40.02.
A few years back, she had said that her mother taught her to persevere — “to go on till reaching the top”. She also said she wanted to be the best batter in the world. At just 30, she has now reached a rather literal version of that ambition, but as she said in the press conference after the Hong Kong match that “it is just the start”.