As the Indian women’s cricket team shatters records in Ireland, explosive batter Shafali Verma can only watch the girls from her home on television. Touted as the next big thing in the Indian women’s team, Shafali was dropped from the squad over a poor run of form. But, the batter has shown great intent to learn from her mistakes and emerge as a better player. Recalling the setback when she was dropped from the team, Shafali said that she didn’t break the news to her father as he had a heart attack just two days before her omission from the team.
Shafali was part of the ODI series against New Zealand, where she registered scores of 33, 11, and 12. The selectors decided to remove her from the team and get Pratika Rawal as a replacement. Rawal has already done wonders at the top of the batting order. In six matches, she has scored a century and three half-centuries already.
“It’s not easy to get over it. I didn’t want to reveal it because my father had a heart attack about two days before I got dropped from the team. I hid the news from him till he got better. He was in the hospital. I told him a week later,” Shafali told the Indian Express.
Since making recovery, Shafali’s father has been constantly working to get his daughter to improve her skills and earn a recall to the national team.
“Father knows everything. Sometimes as kids even we forget our strengths, but they don’t forget,” Shafali said. “He reminded me of the workouts and drills from my childhood… These are my strengths, and sometimes you need to work on them to remember how good you are at them.”
In the two domestic tournaments Shafali has featured in since being dropped, she has aggregated scores of 527 and 414 runs in 12 matches. But, the young batter also knows the areas she has to improve on.
“The constant work is on areas like when deliveries don’t come to my strengths, how do I take singles, how do I rotate strike, how do I build my innings. Everyone knows my strengths, but the constant goal is to mentally get smarter by learning how to build an innings better,” she added.
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