Shafali Verma

Shafali Verma emerged as a breath of fresh air in the ecosystem of Indian women's cricket.

Accumulation, and not aggression, was for long the currency domestic batters thrived with. India longed for a batter who could take the game on from ball one and they seemed to have found one with the then-15-year-old showing off her USP in the Women's T20 Challenge 2019 in Jaipur - power.

An India call-up came soon after and Shafali became the youngest woman to play a T20I. In November 2019, she became the youngest India batter to hit an intentional half-century, and a few months later, was a key figure in India featuring in the final of the T20 World Cup 2020, a tournament she headed into as the No. 1-ranked ICC T20I batter.

A glimpse of her precocious talent was evident when Shafali was just ten. She replaced her brother, who had taken ill, in an Under-12 boys' tournament in Panipat, and was awarded the "Man of the Match" and "Man of the Series" awards. Shafali had a cropped hair right from when she was six, and that meant no one could tell that she was a girl playing in a competition meant for boys.

The daughter of a jewellery repair worker in Rohtak, Haryana, Shafali received her father Sanjeev's backing right from her formative days. He helped her with training and strength training. All this despite facing criticism from relatives and peers, who felt Sanjeev was "spoiling" his daughter.

In the next few years, Shafali came very close to scoring a century on Test debut, cemented her place across formats, became a silver medallist at the Commonwealth Games, captained India to the inaugural Under-19 women's T20 World Cup title and scored a record Test double-century apart from playing multiple World Cups. She was picked up for INR 2 crore at the inaugural WPL auction by Delhi Capitals.