Shafali Verma struggles to hold back tears when recalling the time she was dropped from the India team for the tour of Australia in November. The lead up to the squad announcement hadn’t been easy for the 20-year-old Shafali, who was beside her father Sanjeev Verma who had suffered a heart attack only two days ago. With the family already going through a testing period she kept the news hidden for a week from her father, her go-to-person for all topics under the sun.
“It’s not easy to get over it. I didn’t want to reveal 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 tells The Indian Express on the sidelines of the Senior Women’s One Day Challenger Trophy where her team Team A lost to Team C in a thrilling final at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
Once he learnt the news, Sanjeev didn’t even give himself enough time to recover. Instead, with the Senior Women’s One Day Trophy on the horizon, he began taking Shafali for practice. He was her first coach, who used to wake up at 5 and go looking for empty patches in the neighbourhood for practice when she was young. Now, yet again, at Rohtak, Sanjeev ensured her daughter got back on her feet immediately.
“Father knows everything, sometimes as kids even we forget our strengths but they don’t forget. He reminded me of the workouts and drills from my childhood, and helped me to do the same. When I started, we had these knocking drills – where I play on-drive, straight drive and that’s what I worked on. These are my strengths and sometimes you need to work on them to remember how good you are at them,” Shafali says.
The result of it is evident in Shafali’s game. In the two domestic tournaments she has played since being dropped from the national side, Shafali has amassed 527 and 414 runs in 12 matches, scoring three centuries and five fifties. A strike-rate of 152.31 and 145.26 tells how dominant she is at this level. But what is definitely not to be missed is, Shafali has worked on her game, especially regarding the rotation of strike and more importantly, fitness.
“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 – this last thing is a work in progress throughout. Everyone knows my strengths, but the constant goal is to mentally get smarter by learning how to build an innings better,” she says.
She has also found more time to work on her fitness as a result of being out of the national team. “Sometimes when you’re continuously playing games, you don’t get time to work on your fitness. So now the effort is to keep working on my fitness and develop my batting as much as possible. I want to grab all the chances I can and make runs when I get the opportunity, wherever that is – Team India or domestic,” she says.
For an explosive batter, over the last year or so at the international level, opposition have also found ways to tie her down. Shafali admits how the busy calendar, where she even played the inaugural edition of the women’s Under-19 World Cup, never really allowed her to work on her game. “When I broke out at the domestic level I quickly moved to India level within two years. After that, it has been such a continuous journey that I haven’t really had time to pause and see what I can improve in my game. I have not had the time to really work on my game. I am positive that even this bad phase will end up teaching me something.”
Still only 20, it has been five years since Shafali broke into the international scene with her aggressive game at the top. Apart from her batting skills, thanks to the WPL exposure where she shares the dressing room with Meg Lanning and Marizanne Kapp, she has also figured out what it takes to perform well consistently at the top.
“I have played for two seasons under the foreign players in Delhi Capitals. I’ve learnt that if I can toughen up mentally, I can dominate international cricket. This was something I didn’t realise in the five years I spent in international cricket. We got this opportunity to rub shoulders with foreign players and just watching Meg Lanning and Marizanne Kapp — their process and how they go about their game, I’ve learnt a lot,” Shafali says now eyeing the top prize in the upcoming WPL.
With India not having any international assignments till their tour of England in June, Shafali is looking forward to the WPL and beyond, especially with the 50-over World Cup just nine months away.
“If I am getting 500 odd runs in 5-6 days of practice, imagine what I can do with more work behind the scenes for a month or 20 days. I have to thank my family and Haryana Cricket Association. They trusted me with U19 captaincy when I didn’t know anything about the job. They built my confidence, taught me how I can operate. It is helping with my batting as well.”