On this day, two years ago, a 15-year-old Shafali Verma created buzz among the country’s cricket fraternity by becoming India’s youngest cricketer – male or female – to score an international fifty. With her record-breaking half-century, Shafali surpassed even the 30-year-old feat of her ‘idol’ and Indian batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar.
When Shefali did this feat, she was only 15 years 285 days old. Before him, the record was held by Tendulkar, who scored his first international fifty at the age of 16 years and 214 days.
Shafali’s scintillating knock of 73 runs off 49 balls also propelled India Women to an impressive 84-run victory over West Indies Women at the Darren Sammy National Cricket Stadium. Interestingly, this was Shafali’s only fifth T20I match in international cricket. However, one could argue that Shafali had experience of over 20 games, the way she kept the West Indies team’s attack on the sword.
Shafali’s innings hit four long sixes and six fours.
Shafali came into the game a month back on the back of her good performance against South Africa Women. In only the second match of his international career, he slammed South African bowlers across the park on his way to his previous highest score of 46 in Surat.
Shafali started well in this game. However, in the second over of the match, bowled by Shakira Selman, she exploded with two fours and a six. After that, he hit Chinley Henry for four boundaries and in the process scored 43 runs in just 18 balls in the powerplay.
This girl from Haryana had made another record in that game, in which she shared a partnership of 143 runs for the opening wicket with Smriti Mandhana. It was also India’s first-ever wicket partnership in T20Is.
Riding on the exploits of Mandhana and Shafali, the Women in Blue posted a challenging total of 185 runs for the loss of four wickets in the allotted 20 overs after the home team was asked to bat first.
In reply, the Indian women’s team restricted West Indies to 101 runs for the loss of nine wickets.
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