Shafali Verma is an Indian right-handed batter who was born in 2004 in a small town, Rohtak. She had been interested in the sport since she was a kid as her brother and father were both huge cricket fans.
She debuted in Test and ODIs in 2021 and has shown outstanding performance in her career. She plays for Delhi Capitals in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) and holds the record for hitting the most sixes in the league which is 33.
She was retained by her former team for 2 crore for the upcoming Women’s Premier League making her one of the most expensive players in the tournament after Smriti Mandhana, Ashleigh Gardner, Nat Brunt, and others. She had made 252 runs in the inaugural season and 309 runs in the following season. She’s also the third-highest run scorer of the season.
Shafali Verma is known for her “fearless approach” and explosive batting. She herself claimed that she tries to take lessons and improve with every match as a cricketer. She has had some exceptional achievements in her career, so let us take a look at her life.
Against All Odds: Shafali Verma’s Early Life and Struggle
Her father, Sanjeev Verma is a die-hard fan of the cricket legend, Sachin Tendulkar and was himself invested in the sport. However, he could not continue his journey due to a lack of family support. This encourages him to support his daughter, whom he took to the local grounds for practice since she was 8. They’d bowl for hours and Shefali would hit the ball as hard as she could.
Around 2013, her father took her to a local cricket academy but she was denied admission because she was a girl. Eventually, following her father’s advice, she cut her hair short looking like her brother which got her enrolled in the Shree Ram Narain Cricket Academy.
She faced many hardships in her journey of becoming a cricketer as she was not allowed to play in male-only tournaments because she would get “hurt” according to the organizers. She was also mocked and laughed at for having interests in a sport meant for “boys”.
Shafali Verma’s Success Story
She became the youngest debutant for India at the age of 15 in a Women’s T20 International match in 2019. She’s also the youngest Indian cricketer to score a half-century in international cricket with 73 runs in 49 balls. She bagged the Player of the Series Award in a T20 series in West Indies. She was India’s top scorer in the Women’s T20 World Cup in 2020.
She became the youngest Indian Cricketer to play all three formats in international cricket. She holds the record for being the youngest female cricketer to score 1000 T20 runs and is in the No. 1 position in the ICC T20 batters ranking.
She was a part of India’s silver-winning squad in the Commonwealth Games in 2022 and captained the U19 team in the World Cup, in which the team won.
Shafali Verma Ready to Roar in The WPL 2025
Shafali Verma will be playing for her maiden team Delhi Capitals in the upcoming WPL 2025. The tournament starts on 14 February and will last a month. The team is currently hosting a training camp in Pune where she told SPORTS18,
“The preparations are going in full swing. The atmosphere here is really good. The players get to play a good number of matches in WPL, very good opportunities to make small tweaks here and there in your game” she added.
Verma was dropped out of the ODI squad last year in November and also suffered from family health issues as her father suffered a heart attack. However, she’s all set to put her head in the game and make a comeback.
Regarding her comeback, she said, “I’ve realized that my job is to score runs whenever I get the opportunity, and that’s where I want to focus. The only thing in my control is my preparation, if I train well and score runs, I know I can come back stronger,”.
