Veda Krishnamurthy retires from professional cricket

Batter Veda Krishnamurthy has called time on her professional career, five years after she last played for India, at the Women's T20 World Cup final in Melbourne in 2020.

Veda retires with 48 ODIs and 76 T20I caps, with the highlight being her role in India's seminal run to the 2017 World Cup final, where they came within nine runs of a maiden world title. Her final on-field appearance came during WPL 2024, where she represented Gujarat Giants.

"Cricket gave me more than just a career," she wrote in a post on social media. "It gave me a sense of who I am. It taught me how to fight, how to fall and how to keep showing up. It's now time to give back. Whatever the role, whatever the way, I'm here for the game. I truly believe my second innings will be just as meaningful."

A hard-hitting middle-order batter, Veda also captained Karnataka and Railways in the domestic circuit. In 2023, she led Karnataka to runners-up finish in the Senior Women's One Day Trophy for successive years in 2021-22 and 2022-23 - they went down to domestic powerhouse Railways by six runs in the title-clash in February 2023.

Veda finishes with 829 ODI runs in 49 innings, with eight half-centuries, starting with one on debut against England at Derby in 2012. Her most memorable knock, however, was the 45-ball 70 that helped India beat New Zealand and qualify for the semi-final of the 2017 ODI World Cup.

In the same year, Veda joined a select list of Indian cricketers to have been picked in the WBBL when she represented Hobart Hurricanes in nine matches.

In T20Is, Veda hit 875 runs in 63 innings with two half-centuries. All her four WPL games came belatedly in 2024, after she went unsold for the first edition.