Shafali Verma was born on 28th January 2004 in Rohtak, Haryana in India. She is currently studying in 10th Standard at Mandeep Senior Secondary School in Rohtak.
She made her debut in WT20I Cricket on 24 September 2019 and became the youngest woman to play a T20I International match for India. She is yet to make her debut in Tests and ODI format.
Verma is currently at the 3rd position on the table of best batswomen in the world. She has reached such a level in a very short time and is very well known for her power-hitting capabilities.
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Shafali Verma Domestic Cricket Career
In the 2018-19 T20 domestic senior interstate competition Shafali played in the Haryana Women’s Team and scored a total of 186 runs from six innings at a strike rate of 187.87 which included tournament highest score of 128 runs from 56 balls against Nagaland.
She also played the Women’s T20 challenge in the Velocity team and impressed her teammate Daniel Wyatt (England Women’s Cricketer) with her power-hitting abilities.
International Cricket Career
Shafali Verma was selected into Indian Woman Cricket Team at the age of 15 years in the T20I series against South Africa Woman Team. Her performance in the domestic T20 tournaments and Women’s T20 challenge impressed the selectors and though she had never played at senior level, due to her power-hitting abilities she was selected in the T20I squad for 2020 ICC Women’s T20I World Cup.
She also was named player of the series in the 5-match series against West Indies where Shafali had scored 158 runs in 5 innings. In the recently concluded 2020 ICC Women’s T20I World Cup, she opened the innings for the Indian team in all the matches and scored a total of 163 runs at a strike rate of 158.25.
Shafali became No.1 T20I batswoman with her performance in the World Cup but dropped to 3rd position as she managed to score only 2 runs in the Finals.
Unknown Facts about Shafali Verma
- Shafali Verma’s father was also interested to play cricket when he was young but he never got any support from his family. So he decided to encourage his children to play the sport.
- She was 9 years old when she went along her father to watch Sachin Tendulkar in his last Ranji Trophy match in 2013 and saw the love of people towards the legend and got motivated to play cricket.
- In her initial days, she got trained under her father for 3 years as there was no proper training for girls and she wasn’t allowed to play along with boys as they were afraid that she would get hurt.
- Once she cut her hair short and played in the place of her brother in a Boy’s Cricket Championship tournament and won the player of the tournament award.
- In 2016, she joined Ram Narayan Cricket Club and practised along with girls.
- Ashwani Kumar (Coach) was impressed with her performance and power-hitting capabilities that allowed her to play in U-19 and U-23 teams.
- Shafali captained Haryana Women’s U-19 team in 2018.
- She was awarded the BCCI Grade C contract under which she will receive 10 lakhs per year.