1.4 Billion People, One Name on TIME's List — and She Plays for the Women's Team

TIME magazine published its 100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026 on Monday. LeBron James made it. Lionel Messi made it. Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Alcaraz, Simone Biles — the usual global superstars occupying the usual spots. And then, in between the basketball legends and football demigods, there was Smriti Mandhana. Twenty-nine years old. Vice-captain of India. Left-handed opener. The only Indian in 100 names.

Let that sit for a moment. India — 1.4 billion people, the country where cricket isn't a sport but a religion, where an IPL final pulls 250 million viewers, where Virat Kohli has 270 million Instagram followers — and the only person who made this list plays for the women's team. Not Kohli. Not Bumrah. Not Gill. Not Rohit. Smriti Mandhana.

The only other cricketer on the list? South Africa's Temba Bavuma, who led his nation to a maiden World Test Championship title. Two cricketers out of 100 global sports icons. One man who captained an underdog nation to their greatest Test triumph. One woman who has spent a decade quietly rewriting every record in women's cricket while the world watched the IPL instead.

Mandhana's resume reads like someone trying to speedrun every possible batting record. First Indian woman to score a century in all three formats. First woman to score more than 1,000 ODI runs in a single calendar year. Joint holder of the most international centuries in women's cricket — 17 and counting. India's all-time leading T20I run-scorer across both men's and women's cricket, with 4,401 runs in 167 matches.

That last stat deserves its own paragraph. In a country that has produced Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma in T20Is, the person who has scored the most T20I runs for India is Smriti Mandhana. Not a man. Not one of the IPL megastars with 20-crore contracts. A woman who started playing state cricket at 11 and made her international debut at 16.

She captained the Royal Challengers Bangalore to back-to-back Women's Premier League titles in 2024 and 2026 — the franchise's first trophies in any format, delivered before the men's side had won their own. She was vice-captain when India won the 2025 Women's World Cup, scoring 434 runs in nine matches at 54.25 — the highest by any Indian in a single World Cup edition, eclipsing Mithali Raj's 409 from 2017.

The TIME list dropped on Monday. On Saturday, Mandhana had walked out at Edgbaston to face Pakistan in the Women's T20 World Cup with India 18/2 after four overs — Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues both back in the hut. What she did next was the difference between crisis and cruise control.

Sixty-eight off 44 balls. A fifty reached in 34 deliveries. A partnership with Harmanpreet Kaur that turned 18/2 into a platform for India's 170/6 — their highest T20 World Cup total against Pakistan. Deepti Sharma then took 5/10 to seal a 64-run demolition, but it was Mandhana's innings that set the tone. Calm when it mattered. Ruthless when the opening appeared. The sort of batting that makes you understand why Shubman Gill once compared her to Damien Martyn — "that slow, lazy elegance."

She's now mid-campaign in England, chasing India's first Women's T20 World Cup title. The 2025 ODI World Cup is already in the bag. A T20 crown would make her generation of Indian women's cricket arguably the most successful in the sport's history. And she's doing it while being named alongside LeBron and Messi, not that she'd notice — Mandhana has always been more interested in cover drives than column inches.

Here's the uncomfortable truth buried inside this recognition: only two cricketers out of 100 names. Cricket is the second most-watched sport on Earth, played across Test, ODI, T20I, and franchise formats in dozens of countries. The IPL alone generates more revenue than most European football leagues. And yet, on the global stage where influence is measured beyond subcontinental borders, cricket placed two names.

It's not a slight — it's a reality check. For all of the BCCI's billions and the IPL's fireworks, cricket's global cultural penetration remains narrow. The fact that Mandhana made it says more about her individual transcendence than cricket's structural reach. She's won awards from the BBC, the ICC, the BCCI, and now TIME. She's broken barriers in a sport where women's cricket was an afterthought until the WPL changed the economics in 2023.

And the fact that Bavuma is the only other cricketer? A Black African captain who led South Africa to their first WTC title, shattering decades of expectation and prejudice? TIME didn't pick the biggest names in cricket. They picked the two people who changed what cricket looks like to the rest of the world.

Mandhana doesn't do controversy. She doesn't post cryptic Instagram stories or fire shots at selectors on YouTube. She doesn't need to. Her career has been a methodical demolition of every ceiling placed in front of her — the first this, the youngest that, the most-ever something else — executed with the same unhurried left-hand grace that makes her batting so distinctive.

She was named BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Year. She was ICC Women's ODI Cricketer of the Year. She led RCB to their first franchise trophies. She finished as the highest-ever Indian scorer at a World Cup. And now she stands alongside LeBron James in a magazine that defines global sporting influence.

In a cricket ecosystem that worships its male superstars with a fervour bordering on religion, Mandhana's TIME 100 inclusion is a quiet earthquake. The most globally influential Indian sportsperson in 2026, according to TIME, isn't the one with 270 million followers. It's the one with 17 international centuries, a World Cup winners' medal, and a batting style that makes Edgbaston crowds forget they came to support England.

The list came out on a Monday. By Tuesday, she'll be back in the nets preparing for India's next World Cup match. That's the Mandhana way. Records fall, the world notices, and she moves on to the next cover drive.