Shafali Verma in action during the India-Sri Lanka T20 World Cup Group A match. (BCCI Women on X)
Under the floodlights in Sharjah, a young Indian batter was making her mark as a fearless strokemaker. Length ball from Ayabonga Khaka – one of the best pacers in the world – was swatted over midwicket for four. Next ball, slightly fuller, the ball went flying over cover. Another full ball, a bit straighter, was whacked over midwicket.
In the space of four deliveries, 16-year-old Shafali Verma hit three fours in the Women’s T20 Challenge in November 2020. Sure enough, her innings would come to an end in the same over as she kept going for the boundaries, but ended up getting caught at deep midwicket. But at 16, the world was witnessing the start of something special from the swashbuckling Haryana batter.
Fast forward four years, Shafali will be back in Sharjah in a match with much higher stakes. A match that will decide India’s future at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. India will be desperately hoping their match-winner comes good at the top of the order, if they are to stand any chance of stopping the juggernaut that is Australia.
In the four years since that exhibition series – one where she had the best strike rate among all batters albeit with cameos – Shafali has been through a lot. It’s also been four years since she was in a T20 World Cup final with the senior team, playing a stellar role in India’s run to the title clash in Australia – another tournament where she was top of the strike rate charts overall, going at 158.25. She has led the Indian U19 side to a World Cup title. She has crossed plenty of milestones along the way, most of them to do with the “youngest” to do something or the other. It’s easy to forget sometimes she is still only 20.
The 2024 World Cup, however, has been a bit of hit and miss for the young opener. The pitches, stadium dimensions and the sheer heat in Dubai have been hot topics of discussion in the press conferences. There has been an admission from India that they have been somewhat surprised by the conditions overall, which saw them struggle in the first two matches. It was only against Sri Lanka that they managed to fire in unison for a comprehensive win.
India’s Shafali Verma plays a shot during the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 match between Pakistan and India at Dubai International Stadium, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP/PTI)
Shafali’s scores so far have been 2, 32 and 43 and her overall strike rate in the tournament is less than 100 (77 runs at 97.46 with 7 fours and no sixes). While it is true that run-scoring has been difficult, 19 batters have a better strike rate than Shafali so far in the tournament.
This is perhaps why she had a chuckle when she discussed what the team has been trying to do in trying to counteract the slowness of the pitches. “With the boundary sizes nearly 70m, it’s been very difficult to hit the sixes but we’re thinking of taking the first run fast and targeting doubles,” she said, which Smriti Mandhana too mentioned in her assessment of India’s batting against Sri Lanka.
Running between the wickets has never been Shafali’s strong-suit – there was a compilation on the ICC broadcast during the match against Pakistan, of how she was slow off the blocks from the non-striker’s end. But where Shafali has struggled the most so far is boundary-hitting. In her T20I career, she scores a six every 26.18 balls, and a boundary every 5.08 balls. At this World Cup, she is yet to hit a six and her boundary-scoring frequency is once every 11.29 deliveries.
When Shafali is at her best, she has a stable base and hits through the line. She also likes the ball coming onto the bat, which hasn’t been the case in UAE with even the faster bowlers largely resorting to change of pace. But in the match against Sri Lanka, Shafali had started to show signs of getting used to the pace, and trying to clear the in-field when possible. All three of her fours were aerial hits. However, after the powerplay, she slowed again as the field spread out and she wasn’t given any pace to work with – that is where she’d have to improve against Australia.
Luckily for India, when Shafali started to slow down, Mandhana had found her groove and as such, the partnership gave them a strong enough platform.
“If neither of us struggled, I think we could have scored 200-250 runs,” Shafali joked before adding, “So, we try to give a strike to the one who is getting the ball better on the bat. For Sharjah, we will have a few days off. So, we will work on the process and we will focus on what we can do to be confident.”
It was Australia who caused the biggest heartbreak in Shafali’s career – she was inconsolable that day in Melbourne after India lost the final in front of a record crowd. On Sunday, Shafali could have the chance to heal some of that hurt if she can find her groove and provide India an explosive start.
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