Punam Raut top-scored in the 2017 World Cup final, and she has retired from international cricket at 37
Punam Raut, India’s top scorer in the 2017 World Cup final and one half of the 320-run opening stand with Deepti Sharma, has retired from all international cricket.
Oct 16, 2026
Raut posted the news on Instagram on Thursday, 15 October, the day after her 37th birthday, and it takes effect immediately. She had not played for India since a pink-ball Test against Australia at Carrara in 2021, so this is less a surprise than a door being closed properly.
“After much thought and reflection, I have decided to retire from international cricket in all formats of the game,” she wrote. “Representing India has been the greatest honour of my life.”
Twelve years, three formats
Raut’s India career ran from 2009 to 2021 and covered four Tests, 73 ODIs and 35 T20Is. The 50-over game was where she did most of her work. She scored 2,299 ODI runs at 34.83, with three hundreds and 15 fifties, usually at the top of the order.
Her T20I numbers are smaller: 719 runs at 27.65 with four fifties. She played four T20 World Cups, the first in 2009 and the last in 2014.
She only got four Tests, and they make an odd little set. She got a duck on debut at Wormsley in August 2014, then scored 130 against South Africa in Mysore three months later, an innings of 355 balls. She finished with 264 Test runs at 44.
The 2017 World Cup
Ask most Indian fans about Raut and they will go straight to 2017. India reached the World Cup final at Lord’s that summer, and she scored 106 against Australia at Bristol in the league stage on the way there. In the final against England she made 86, more than anyone else in the India side, and India still lost by nine runs.
She called it one of the defining moments of her career in her statement, and she was not only talking about herself. “Although we felt just short of the trophy, that tournament transformed women’s cricket in India, inspired a generation of young girls, and changed the future of our game,” she wrote.
One of her team-mates that day was Smriti Mandhana, out for a duck in the final. Mandhana starts as India’s full-time captain in Raipur tonight, against Zimbabwe.
320 with Deepti
The other number attached to her name is 320. Raut and Deepti Sharma opened together against Ireland in Potchefstroom in May 2017 and put on 320, which is still the highest partnership for any wicket in women’s ODIs. Raut made 109 off 116 balls before retiring hurt, and Deepti went on to 188.
The walk at Carrara
Her last Test is remembered for something other than the runs. On 36 in the first innings at Carrara she edged one behind, was given not out by the on-field umpire, and walked anyway. Mandhana said afterwards that Raut had earned a lot of respect from the dressing room by doing it. She added 41 not out in the second innings, the match was drawn, and she never played for India again.
Raut also thanked the Mumbai Cricket Association for backing her when she was starting out. The opportunities she got there, she wrote, “laid the foundation of my cricketing journey.”