ENGW vs INDW: Shafali Verma's Teenage India Dream Goes On With Debut Test Fifties | Cricket News
India may have drawn their one-off women’s Test away to England in Bristol on Saturday, but the match represented another landmark for teenage batting sensation Shafali Verma. The 17-year-old opener become the first Indian and the youngest woman from any country to surpass fifty in both innings of her debut Test with scores of 96 and 63. But it was the way Verma, named player of the match, made those runs that added to her reputation as one of the rising stars of women’s cricket. Prior to the Test, former India women’s captain Diana Edulji described Verma as being in the “mould” of Virender Sehwag, once a dashing India men’s opener.
But although already known for her exploits in the white-ball game, which have seen Verma signed by Birmingham Phoenix for this year’s inaugural edition of English domestic cricket’s The Hundred, she showed there was more to her game than big-hitting.
Blessed with good balance thanks to an uncomplicated technique that sees her head over the ball, which in turn helps with playing her shots as late as possible, Verma also demonstrated a maturity beyond her years in India’s first women’s Test since 2014.
She started her innings in the style of a ‘traditional’ opener, respecting the new ball and picking off any loose deliveries.
It was only after tea that Verma really went for her shots — including a superb lofted drive straight back over the head of England spearhead fast bowler Katherine Brunt –in a 152-ball innings featuring 13 fours and two sixes before, in sight of a century, a mistimed stroke off Kate Cross was caught at mid-off.
