Shafali Verma is doing her thing at the U-19 Women’s World Cup, playing with power and panache

It shouldn’t surprise many that she has had a decisive hand in taking India to the Super Six stage of the U-19 World Cup, thanks to thundering victories in the two matches they’ve played so far, with one group-stage game still left. Nor should the power or panache that have underpinned her strokeplay at the tournament surprise anyone; the traits are typical of Verma, almost in equal measure, when she is on song.

In both matches, she set up India’s wins with rapid starts to the innings while her opening partner, Shweta Sehrawat, anchored them with an unbeaten 92 and 74, respectively.

In India’s campaign-opener on Saturday, January 14, Verma laid the platform for her side’s seven-wicket win over hosts South Africa U-19s. The centrepiece of Verma’s blistering 16-ball 45 in that game was the offensive she launched in the 26-run sixth over. Against medium-pacer Nthabiseng Nini, she went 4,4,4,4,4,6.

A traditional cut past point preceded a front-foot slap towards the same region that brought up her first two fours in the over. For the third, she went down the ‘V’, over the head of mid-on. The fourth, a deft back-foot punch feeding off the pace, guided behind point, had class written all over it. She nudged the fifth delivery through the gap through midwicket before the over reached its crescendo with a slap to the right of the bowler for a six down the ground.

A half-century was there for the taking, but a back-of-a-length delivery from offspiner Miane Smit, just introduced into the attack, had Verma hole out to long-on just five runs short of the milestone.

To the opposition’s dismay in the next game, on Monday, January 16, she carried that tempo, batted with even more abandon and walked away with Player of the Match. The result: a 34-ball 78 against UAE U-19s at the same batting paradise – or, the “paata” (a road-like belter) surface, as Verma quipped in Hindi in her post-match interview in the opening fixture – that Willowmoore Park in Benoni has been all tournament so far.

She got to her 50 of just 26 balls – albeit through a misfield at backward point – with 50 of her first 53 runs in that innings coming in just boundaries, 11 fours and a six included. Especially sublime in the leg side, she got off the mark clipping the ball away into the midwicket region to bring up the first of her 16 boundaries. In a bouquet of 12 fours, in all plundered either side of the square, hardly any was ever mundane.

“I enjoyed playing on what was, yes, yet another flat surface,” Verma said after the second match. “Even though I have come here with experience under my belt, nothing is easy when you go out to bat, even at this level. I am relishing every opportunity I am getting with the bat.”

It’s no secret that Verma can hit smoking sixes all around the park on most days, no matter who the opposition or what the stage. The power she is able to inject in her game is a result of years of toil at the Shri Ram Narain Club in her hometown, Rohtak, Haryana, where she would flip tyres for long hours as a kid, and turn the handle of the chaff cutter to build her strength. Suffice to say, the demon of a batter you see dismantling attacks in conditions varied, has as desi an origin story as can be.

For someone so prodigiously strong, so gifted with pluck that belies her years, Verma’s batting arsenal has had its share of holes, though. Take the short ball. For the batter who finished as India’s highest run-getter at the 2020 T20 World Cup, her maiden world tournament, countering short-length deliveries threw up challenges too often, too many through the best part of the tours of England and Australia that followed, in 2021.

She has tried to address this all-too-known shortcoming since. The means to the elusive end has included facing hundreds of bouncers at training during off-seasons in Haryana, from men’s Ranji Trophy players even, as well as on tours, from India Women’s throwdown specialists, most recently during the series against Australia Women in Navi Mumbai and Mumbai.

The UAE attack, on Tuesday, however, barely tested Verma with the short ball. Even its well-chalked-out, full-length, into-the-pads ploy in the powerplay came a cropper in the face of Verma’s sublime timing.

“I think it just shows how much experience matters and how much exposure means to a player in itself…” said UAE U-19s captain Theertha Satish after the match. The premier batter of her side, she acknowledged how watching players like Verma and their fellow 18-year-old Sehrawat, who hasn’t played any senior international cricket yet, can help opposition teams feed off their approach.

“It was super exciting to watch them,” Satish said. “I mean, we are here, we're learning, we're getting the experience and we want to play the strongest sides because this the only platform that we have to face such teams. It's not on a regular basis that we play cricket at this standard, and I'm pretty sure if we are regular in facing such Test-playing teams and getting the proper practice, we’ll do better.”

Satish, in a way, echoed multiple World Cup winner and Australia Women vice-captain Alyssa Healy’s views on a subject that’s likely to divide more followers of the sport if Verma continues to churn out the big, quick runs. During her side’s tour of India last month, Healy explained why, unlike many in the cricketing fraternity, she welcomes the participation of eligible players with experience at the senior level in the U-19 World Cup.

“To be quite honest, I don’t mind it,” Healy had said. “The opportunity for some of these young players to rub shoulders with players that have already played the international game at the top level, I mean, why wouldn't you? If you're stacking your Under-19 side with a full-strength, international side might be an issue.

“But from my point of view, having Shafali and Richa Ghosh (the other player in India’s squad capped at the senior level) in that side is only going to do wonders for those young players coming through and the fact that they can pick their brains on what works well, what doesn't work well in international cricket, is a great thing.”

Verma piling on the runs at the U-19 World Cup is partly down to her exposure at the highest level - to the fastest pacers, the craftiest spinners, under circumstances most challenging - sure. But the brilliance of her blitzkriegs in any cricket shouldn’t blind one to the precocity that’s propelled her to being who she is and where is at: an 18-year-old, standing head and shoulders above many her age, inspiring several on a platform designed to help cricket fashion its future by exposing them to the best there is in this age group. Isn’t the tournament premised on that thought?

Go on, then, Shafali Verma. Keep doing your thing.