Shabaash Mithu (2022)

Mithali Raj (Taapsee Pannu) is former Test and ODI captain of women's national cricket team. She led India to finals of 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup. The film based on her life chronicles the events of her life's journey in the world of women cricket. It presents her struggles and euphoric rise in the women cricket.

There was a time when nobody in India could name a single woman cricketer. Cricketer is a guy's sport. IN 1990, Noorie (Anushree Kushwaha), plays cricket with the boys of her colony. She is feisty and would never take a step back. Her mother is tired of her tomboy antics and enrolls her into a dance class, where Noorie meets Mithali or Mithu. Mithu is the best student in Bharat Natyam. Noorie and Mithu become best friends. Mithun (Nishant Pradhan) is Mithu's elder brother, who plays cricket Mithu is not allowed to enter the cricket ground by Mithun. Mithu & Mithun live with Mother Leela Raj (Devadarshini) and Father Dorai Raj (Sameer Dharmadhikari). Noorie decides to teach cricket to Mithu. Due to her dance training, Mithu has very good hand eye coordination. The girls are asked to vacate the ground by a boys team, but Noorie challenges them to get Mithu out. The whole team fails, and this is watched by the boys coach Sampath (Vijay Raaz). Sampath speaks to Mithu's parents and offers to coach her. Mithu cuts her hair, when her family resists the idea. They give in, the training starts at Keyes Cricket Academy in Hyderabad. Mithun is heartbroken, as he wanted to play professionally. Mithu is good at batting, while Noorie takes up spin bowling. Sampath irons out the kinks in her batting, like dragging the back foot while playing forward. For injuries, he treats them with ice packs, but no respite from training. The girls grow up. Noorie had never told her parents that she was playing cricket. She was hiding this from them. One fine day, she is married off (when she is 15) and Mithu is left alone in her journey. Mithu plays on the day of Noorie's wedding ceremony and is selected for the national camp. As she enters camp, she is treated with hostility with the old timer players. They hide her period pills and subject her to a brutal first training session. Players include Sresha Badyal (Aditi Aryan), Khushi Anvekar (Titeeksha Tawde), Nilu Paswan (Sampa Mandal), Kajal Sutar (Kajal Shishodia), Jhulan Goswami (Mumtaz Sorcar), Preeti Valhar (Nirali Oza), current captain Sukumari Marwaha (Shilpi Marwaha). Mithu is considered too educated and fragile to survive in a hostile environment. Mithu is demoralized and isolated. The head of Women's Cricket Board is Shanta, who sees the hostility and tells Mithu to pull herself together. Sampath explains to Mithu that each of the girls have a story behind them. Jhulan works in the morning and travels 2 hrs by train to attend academy and then goes back home to work at a tea stall. Khushi is the daughter of a Ludhiana blacksmith. Preeti is the daughter of a Saurashtra fisherman. Sampath tells Mithu to fight fire with fire. In the warm up match Mithu scores a century. Shanta selects Mithali for the Eng-Ireland tour prep matches over objections from Sukumari. In the prep match, Mithali plays a stellar innings to win the match from a losing position. The opposing team pushes Jhulan around, and Mithali stands up for her. When the opposing bowler picks a brawl with Mithu, the entire team runs onto the pitch to defend her. Mithu is selected to play for India. At check in, the entire team is asked to remove excess baggage or pay the fee. The girls cant decide if they should leave behind clothes or equipment. Thats when they see the Men's cricket team being escorted through the airport like VIPs. The girls leave their warm clothes behind to conform to baggage regulations. Just before the match Shanta calls Sukumari to inform her that Sampath died in a bike accident. She tells Sukumari not to inform Mithali, but Sukumari does just that to un-nerve Mithali before the most crucial game of her life. Mithali plays through the pain and scores a century. In the next match, she posts the highest test score in women's cricket. Mithali goes from strength to strength, picking up player of the match awards. Sukumari watches from the sidelines. Mithali then objects to the few matches allocated to women's cricket in the calendar yr. Shanta says that WCB does not have budget, so Mithali suggests that WCB should partner with the BCCI. Sukumari tries to shut Mithali down, but she argues for a full time male coach as well. That is the moment when Mithali is announced as the team captain. Mithali embarks on her agenda. She writes consistently to the BCCI. She also introduces new training methods to improve fitness of the team and its ability to play short pitched bowling. The team wins matches in England. Finally, BCCI agrees to a merger. But BCCI sends the team old clothes of the men's team. She is told that her male coach Unni has been fired and the new coach of the Women's team is Sukumari. Mithali meets the BCCI chief (Brijendra Kala), with her whole team. she argues for the identity of the team. The BCCI chief calls Peon Bala (Ramsingh Falkoti), who cannot name a single woman cricketer. BCCI decides to spend on sending WAGS of the male team on tours, instead of spending on the women's team. Mithali resigns and goes home. Mithali decides to get married, but soon realizes that getting married means saying goodbye to cricket. She walks away. Under Sukumari, the team loses match after match and is given an ultimatum for the world cup. Shanta explains to Sukumari that Mithali is not her competitor, but her trump card. Sukumari calls Noorie, who tells Mithali to rejoin the team. Noorie says that Mithu is playing for every woman who never got to the cricket pitch. Mithali gets the team back together (Nilu was getting married and Mithali gets her out of her wedding). Sukumari welcomes Mithali back into the team. India faces England in the 2017 world cup opener. Mithali tells the team that they are playing for their identity. India score 282, with Mithali scoring 50. India win by 35 runs. West Indies is next. India win by 7 wickets. Pakistan is next. India is all out for 169. Mithali gambles that the pitch has dried out and plays her spinners. Pakistan is 74 all out. This win gets them noticed back home. Sri Lanka comes next. India wins by 16 runs, with another Mithali half century. South Africa scores 273/9. Mithali is out first ball and India lose heavily. Aus is next. India score 227, but Aus win easily. The match with New Zealand is a must win for both teams. Whoever wins goes to the semi finals. Mithali scores a century and India score 265. NZ is 79 all out. India is in the semi finals. India face Aus in Semi finals. India score 281/4. India win by 37 runs and enter the final. They face England. Eng score 228/7. Mithali is run out for 23. India lose by 9 runs, after dominating the match for majority of the time. The team returns dejected, but are welcomed as heroes at the airport. The team gets its due.