A day before Mithali Raj became the highest ODI run-getter in women’s cricket, visitors at Bristol found the Indian skipper in the stands, reading verses from Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet.

Raj had to have the real printed thing as her constant companion because guidelines of the Dubai-based International Cricket Council (ICC) prevent players from carrying handsets or Kindles.

But Raj still wanted to read some lines, and watch some cricket. She carried the book, she was clear not to leave one for the other, a slice of discipline her parents inculcated in her at the Indian Air Force Colony in Hyderabad.

In television interviews that followed her feat at the Bristol County Ground in England where on Wednesday she scored 69 off 114 balls in a group match of the Women’s World Cup, Raj talked more of her batting prowess, including four boundaries and one six hit into the stands.

She did not say why she was reading Rumi before a cricket match. Those who know her well and close claimed Raj constantly motivates herself before any match, big or small. She was lazy when she was young and would often rise late from bed. Often, she would be late for her classes because she would get up at 0800 hours, the time when the school had already set itself in motion. Exasperated, her father, Dorai Raj, an officer in the Indian Air Force and a strict disciplinarian, enrolled her in a cricket academy where practice started at 0530 hours. The academy was not new to Raj, she had been there earlier to watch her brother practice. Raj, then, would complete her homework.

But this time, Raj was handed a used bat and pushed into the nets. What would happen to her Bharatanatyam, Raj asked her father. “Make the fielders dance to the tune of your bat,” he replied. Raj turned to her Guru, who asked her to chose between cricket or dance. Raj chose the first, telling friends how it was painful for her to stay away from the stage after her last performance. “I was pained, very pained to leave Bharatanatyam but confident that I will gain everything from cricket,” she told friends in Hyderabad.

Friends recalled how Raj changed her diet – she lived in Hyderabad, the biryani and halim capital – to boiled vegetables and salt-less food a month prior to the tour just to get used to it. Her level of preparedness was an eye-opener for all cricketers.

It was all for cricket, Raj remembered when surrounded by a bevy of reporters with their whirring cameras at Bristol. She also remembered why she and her teammates still remained far away from the limelight the media routinely reserved for male cricketers in India. Last month, Raj had even snubbed a reporter for asking about her favourite male cricketer. Women’s cricket, like everything else with women’s sport, means nothing to a male cricket-obsessed India.

She knew how her landmark will be drowned in the debate over the selection of the coach for the Men in Blue, how that would make breaking headlines in India’s 2000-plus television channels.

Raj was, and still remains, very, very realistic about what she would get in India (read from the BCCI, world’s richest cricket board).

“Prestige is above everything else, we must win the Cup,” Raj had told team members before boarding the flight to London for the World Cup. Cricket cognoscenti in Hyderabad remember how Raj was unhappy when the Indian Badminton League (IBL) had to dress up Saina Nehwal as a cricketer and exhort Indians to watch the shuttle game. That, according to her, was not the right projection of Nehwal, now among the world’s top shuttlers.

Raj made it to the national selection when she was barely 14, a stand-by player, and played her first international when she was 16. Her father kept at it, like an old mariner guiding a new vessel through the choppy waters of cricket. Ask her, and she will remember that first match that took place on June 26, 1999 at Milton Keynes Campbell Park against England in the ICC Women’s World Cup. Raj was not even sure if she was named in the first XI, but over the moon once the list was announced. And then she walked out, donning India colours.

Her parents prayed in India, relatives prayed across the country. Friends asked why women’s cricket is not telecast live by the top broadcasters. No one answered.

And then runs flowed from her bat, she hit the English bowlers all over the field to become the youngest player to score a century (114) on debut. She was ably assisted by her opening partner Reshma Gandhi who also cracked a ton (104), the duo propelling India to a comprehensive 161-run victory.

In Hyderabad, home to cricketing greats like ML Jaisimha and Mohammed Azharuddin, Raj – though she was born in Jodhpur – is considered a legend. Every time she walks into the airport or walks out, special announcements are made so that her fans can line up for autographs and selfies.

Raj basks in the glory but rarely opens up on the glamour quotient of her personality and that of the game. She often told friends that she does not like to be compared to India’s master blaster, Sachin Tendulkar. “The world knows his image, not mine. I could easily walk past the entire Indian men’s cricket team without being noticed. It helps to keep the head low, it always keeps away your critics,” she once told a TV journalist.

Friends knew what Raj meant, there were times when she would wear the Indian blazer and hop on to a flight or a first-class train coach and no one would blink. Often, she would come home tired after practice and ask her father why the boys would ridicule her at the nets by asking everyone to bowl slow. “What do they think of us, Barbie dolls?” she asked her father. Dorai Raj calmed his daughter and they again talked about cricket and its glorious future. He told Raj if in crisis, she should always call her mother and take advice. It is not important to take advice from cricketers all the time just because you are a part of the game, Raj was told. Dorai Raj told his daughter that he would be her critic and would constantly poke her.

It happened in 2013 when India failed to qualify for the ICC World Cup Super Six category. Dorai Raj was livid and even called up a few BCCI officials, asking them to sack his daughter. Hyderabad dailies called him a brutal teacher, some even blamed him for not showing any sympathy to his daughter.

Raj rose to the occasion, and told friends that she knew her father would criticise her if she failed, he had not gone overboard. In the same breath, she said on such occasions, she always turns to her mother for some same advice. Else, in moments of crisis, she would watch old videos of Tinu David, a left-arm spinner who helped the Indian women’s team win many matches with her memorable bowling.

Did anyone rattle her? Raj says one did, the lanky Lucy Pearson, who bowled for England. “I shuddered watching her six feet-plus frame. Lucky for me, Lucy did not continue in the game for long.”

The Indian skipper now has 6,028 runs in 181 ODIs at an average of 51.37. It’s been 18 long years at the top-level, her presence gives a lot of confidence to those with her.

She is Mithali Raj, who still starts the day at 0430 hours and finishes at 2030. Some still may give her a miss at the airport but rush at Sunil Gavaskar, who stopped playing almost 30 years ago. But Raj ignores it, she is waiting to win the World, sorry, the ICC World Cup.

If that happens, no one will call women’s cricket second-class in India.