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Richa Ghosh played her biggest innings in the World CupImage Credit source: Getty Images

Team India's young wicketkeeper batsman Richa Ghosh created a stir by playing a surprising innings in the ICC Women's World Cup 2025. In the match against South Africa, where Team India's top and middle order had failed miserably, Richa made a strong comeback for Team India by playing an explosive innings. But Richa, who was moving towards her century, was heartbroken when she missed the century by just 4 centimeters and was out after scoring 94 runs. Richa could not score a century but made the record of the biggest innings in the World Cup.

India and South Africa were face to face on Thursday 9 October in Visakhapatnam. Team India batted first in this match and the opening pair made an excellent start with a half-century partnership. But like the last two matches of the tournament, once again the top and middle order of the Indian team failed to play big innings. This time the situation was worse than last time because only one wicket had fallen till 83 runs but in no time 6 wickets had fallen till 102 runs.

At such a time, 22 year old wicketkeeper-batsman Richa, who came at number 8, took charge of the innings and gradually took the team to a competitive score. During this, Richa completed her first half-century in World Cup history in 53 balls. After completion of fifty, the Indian batsman started attacking. Richa hit fours and sixes and took the team beyond 250 runs. Richa reached 94 runs after scoring 10 runs in the first 3 balls of the 50th over.

Then the fourth ball came a full toss, on which he made a shot but was caught by the fielder at the boundary. This ball was very high and Richa looked straight at the umpire and asked if it was a no ball. The umpire sent it to the third umpire, where when the height tracker was seen in the replays, it was found that it was not a no-ball because it was only 4 centimeters lower and thus Richa's innings came to an end. The Indian batsman played this memorable inning of 94 runs in just 77 balls, which included 11 fours and 4 sixes.

Richa may have missed scoring her first ODI century but she definitely made a world record during this period. Her innings of 94 runs is the highest score by any batsman ranked 8th or below in the history of women's ODI cricket. Incidentally, earlier this score was in the name of South Africa's Chloe Tryon, who had scored 74 runs against Sri Lanka in the same year. Not only this, this is also the highest score by any Indian wicketkeeper in the World Cup. He broke the record set by Fauzia Khalili in 1982, who had scored 88 runs against England.