Deepti Sharma

In Deepti Sharma, India have the perfect all-format player - a spinner who can keep things tight, and make crucial contributions down the order, the best evidence of which came in the 2025 ODI World Cup final against South Africa, where she made a run-a-ball 58 from No. 5 and took 5 for 39 to hand India their first global title.

Even eight years before that, she had shown her big-game temperament in scoring 216 runs and taking 12 wickets in the 2017 ODI World Cup, including half-centuries against Sri Lanka and South Africa and a three-wicket haul in the thrilling semi-final against Australia.

Deepti initially attracted attention when, in 2016, she became the youngest Indian - male or female - to pick up an ODI five-wicket haul - against Sri Lanka in Ranchi. She was 18 then. She made it a six-for, in the process becoming only the second India woman to do so in the format. In 2024, she took another ODI six-for, against West Indies in Vadodara. But her first moment of real fame came with the bat, in 2017, when she scored 188 against Ireland in an ODI and was involved in a 320-run opening stand with Punam Raut, a world record.

A left-hand batter who bowls right-arm offspin, Deepti idolised fellow Uttar Pradesh player Suresh Raina, and prides herself on her fielding. Incidentally, it was her casual throw that hit the stumps, while she was hanging around at her brother's training session in Agra, that caught the attention of former India player Hemalata Kala, the chair of selectors then, and she took Deepti under her wing.

Deepti played her first senior domestic season in 2014-15, at 16, for Uttar Pradesh, before she was roped in to represent Bengal from 2017-18 to 2023-24 before moving back to Uttar Pradesh. Over the years, she rose to prominence as a reliable offspinner, often befuddling batters with the different speeds she bowled at. She also found home as a batter in India's lower-middle order in white-ball cricket, even if she divided opinion because of her batting style, which lacks the power-hitting element, and tempo. But she has not just been a consistent performer but also a constant in the Indian set-up across formats.

She was the Player of the Tournament in the 2025 World Cup for her 22 wickets and 215 runs, and her performance in the final in Mumbai would have helped erase the nightmarish memories from an encounter against South Africa three years ago when her no-ball in the final over played a big role in India's elimination from the 2022 World Cup.

She also has a Test five-for, which came in a match haul of 9 for 39 in a huge win over England in Mumbai in 2023.

Deepti's first experience at an overseas league was the now-defunct Kia Super League in 2019, where she starred in Western Storm's title win. She has since played in the WBBL as well as the Hundred. Back home, she was picked by UP Warriorz for INR 2.6 crore in the inaugural WPL auction in 2023, and a year later became the first Indian to take a hat-trick in the competition. She was also UP's top scorer that season.