Indian batswoman, Shafali Verma has let her bat do the talking for quite a time now. The 16-year-old cricketer swiftly moved to the top of ICC T20 batting rankings with her thunderous innings almost every time she hit the field.
With many records by her name already, Shafali Verma is by far the only cricketer to have hit maximum sixes in T20 women’s World Cup. No wonder, even the best bowlers from around the world fear to face Shafali on the pitch.
Shafali’s outstanding contribution has also led team India to the T20 World Cup finals. They will be locking horns with defending champions Australia in the finals. But ahead of the match, England’s opener Danni Wyatt has suggested the Ausies to play mind games with Shafali if they want to slow her down, reports TOI.
Talking about the same, Wyatt said, “It’s obvious what her weaknesses are and Shafali knows what they are. The Aussies have tried to bowl to those areas in the past. You’ve got to play a few mind games with her and hope she spoons one up.”
Wyatt has also shared the dressing room with Shafali last year. “When she fails, she’s so hard on herself. I just tell her to relax and that it’s only cricket. When you’re opening the batting in T20, it can be brutal because your role is to go hard and you’re always going to fail. She’s very hard on herself when she does,” she told Times Now.
Recalling the past, Wyatt shared, “Even before the session, she’d go to the nets for extra practice against our quickest male bowlers.”
“She’d bat for about an hour. She’d say ‘yeah, come bowl’ and go ‘bang, bang.’ And I went ‘who’s that?’ She had an extra 20 minutes to do some drills after. I couldn’t believe she was 15 when someone told me. She knew exactly what she wanted to get out of that session. At aged 15, that’s pretty smart,” Wyatt revealed.
Shafali is truly a treasure of talent and she has rightly proved so! We hope she continues to be in her best form and help team India bring the World Cup trophy home on Sunday.