At the start of the women’s World Cup, which she can now call her own, Shafali Verma was out of the reckoning. An injury to incumbent opener Pratika Rawal propelled the gutsy girl from Rohtak back in the spotlight.We all know the story. But, to fully understand Shafali, one needs to revisit Rohtak before the pandemic in 2019, when she was just 15. At Shri Ram Narain Cricket Academy, under the watch of her coach Ashwani Kumar, she was handed the kind of test few teenagers ever face.
Kumar wanted to toughen his prodigy by pitting her against Haryana’s Ranji Trophy pacers — men twice her age. When Kumar asked Haryana pacer Ashish Hooda to bowl at Shafali at the nets, he hesitated at first. “I didn’t want to hurt her because she was so young,” Hooda tells TOI . He ambled in to bowl a gentle loosener. Shafali skipped down the track and smashed it back over his head.The next one came in at 130 kmph — and met the same fate. It induced a wry smile on Kumar’s face. “Even at 15, she had the aggression and was unfazed by challenges thrown at her,” Hooda said.That audacity defined Shafali’s cricket, but what followed tested her in new ways. By 2024, the once-unstoppable opener found herself out of the Indian team due to her indifferent form. It stung. Instead of sulking, she went back to the grind.In Gurugram, her days began before sunrise. Two-hour batting sessions were followed by intense weight-training routines, punctuated by her father Sanjeev Verma’s words of motivation.
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“After getting dropped last year, she told me that she needed to work on her fitness and make the most of every opportunity,” Verma said.On the big night at Navi Mumbai, her bat spoke loudest with an audacious 87 off 78 balls. With the ball, she picked up two key wickets to break South Africa’s back.On women’s cricket’s grandest stage, Shafali’s redemption was complete.
