Smriti Mandhana has been named in TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026, becoming the only Indian athlete to feature in the prestigious global ranking. The 29-year-old vice captain of the Indian women's cricket team joins a list that spans continents, disciplines, and generations - a recognition that reflects both her individual brilliance and the growing stature of women's cricket on the world stage.
The list, which TIME describes as featuring "people shaping sports today," is headlined by basketball legend LeBron James and draws from a wide range of disciplines - football, tennis, golf, basketball, winter sports and beyond. That breadth makes Mandhana's inclusion all the more striking. In a ranking that spans everything from live beach volleyball odds to billion-dollar franchises, the Mumbai-born left-hander stands as the sole representative of Indian sport, a marker of just how far her influence has travelled beyond the subcontinent. live beach volleyball odds
A Record-Breaker Who Keeps Rewriting the Books
TIME's profile of Mandhana is anchored in numbers, and with good reason. She is the first Indian woman to score a double century in a domestic one-day game, the first to score a century in all three international formats, and is a joint holder of the record for the most international women's cricket centuries with 17. She is also the first woman to surpass 1,000 one-day international runs in a single calendar year - a barrier that had stood unbroken until she cleared it. In 2024, she set the record for the most international runs across formats by a woman, then went and broke her own mark the following year. That back-to-back feat earned her the BBC Indian Sportswoman of 2025 award.
What separates Mandhana from many statistical champions, however, is that the runs have arrived consistently against the best attacks in conditions that have not always suited her style. As an attacking left-handed opener, she has always carried risk as a feature, not a flaw. The records, as TIME put it, "keep tumbling in."
Team Honours Have Arrived to Match the Individual Acclaim
TIME noted that Mandhana herself is "proudest of the team honors she is also accumulating," and the recent chapter of her career gives her every reason to be. She captained Royal Challengers Bangalore to Women's Premier League titles in both 2024 and 2026, establishing herself not just as a match-winner but as a leader capable of building and driving a winning culture across a franchise competition. At international level, she was vice captain when India lifted the ICC Women's World Cup, contributing the second-highest run tally in that tournament - a performance that underlined her capacity to deliver when the stakes are at their highest.
Mandhana's Company on a Global Stage
The full list offers a snapshot of sport's most consequential figures in 2026. Alongside LeBron James, it includes football icons Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, tennis star Carlos Alcaraz, basketball phenomenon Victor Wembanyama, New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, golfer Rory McIlroy, Chinese-American skier Eileen Gu, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino. South Africa's Test captain Temba Bavuma also features - recognition for a transformative period that saw him lead the Proteas to a historic series win in India and the World Test Championship title.
The presence of both Mandhana and Bavuma on the same list is a reminder of how cricket's centre of gravity continues to shift and broaden. For Indian sport specifically, Mandhana's solitary entry carries the weight of a nation's expectations and an entire format's ambitions. Women's cricket in India has grown rapidly in visibility and commercial value, and Mandhana has been at the centre of that growth - not as a figurehead, but as its most consistent and compelling performer.
