Mithali Raj is known for her wonderful batting style who scored heaps of runs in her international career for team India. She is also Indian women’s team captain. She is the second highest run-getter in Women’s One-Day Internationals.

Currently, the Indian women’s team is in England for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 starting on June 23, 2017. Prior to the tournament, Mithali attended the opening dinner and media roundtable event yesterday. But, she came up with a perfect reply when a reporter asked about her who’s her favorite male cricketer.

And her reply was mouth-shutting. She said, “Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favorite female cricketer is? “I have always been asked who’s your favorite cricketer but you should ask them who their favorite female cricketer is,” Mithali shot back at the reporter.

However, if anything, the inherent gender bias in sports, as Raj pointed out is evident from the question, is still the primary reason why women’s sports in India do not get the coverage they deserve despite having a wealth of talent.

Though it was not her Willow, but her words that were a spot in. Her response got a lot of applause on social media and among those was Adam Collins, a cricket writer associated with many media houses.

Superb response from Indian skipper Mithali Raj. Asked by a reporter who her favourite male player is: “Would you ask a man that?” 👊🏻 #WWC17 pic.twitter.com/RqgVLzXp46

— Adam Collins (@collinsadam) June 22, 2017

Calling BCCI’s effort to promote women’s cricket, the skipper appreciated the improvements made by the board in the last two home series. “There’s a lot of difference because we are not a regular on television. Now the BCCI has made an effort that the last two home series have been televised and social media has improved a lot of it but there is a still a lot of catch-ups to do in terms of recognition,” she said.

“Men’s cricket sets the bar. We are always trying to reach where they set the standard. All of us follow men’s cricket because we want at some point that women’s cricket would be up there. All of us at some point have been coached by a male cricketer. I strongly believe that they get a lot of intensity into the training sessions. They are very hard taskmasters,” Mithali said.

“I believe that if you are representing your country, your country should get the best of the best. It’s nothing to do with women coaches (who) don’t have the ability, they do. but if you really want to push the team to the highest level, you need to have somebody who is a tough taskmaster so that the girls really put in the intensity in their training sessions and they carry that into the main tournaments,” Mithali words about the role of coaches.

Mithali was in her elements on the field as well, as her score of 85 enabled the Indian women to beat Sri Lanka by 109 runs in a warm-up game. India begins the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 quest on June 24 against hosts England.