The Youngest Girl Player to break the 30-year record of Sachin Tendulkar: Shafali Verma
Shafali Verma is a cricket player who just at the age of 15 broke the 30-year-old record of her idol and favorite batsman Sachin Tendulkar by scoring 73 runs off 49 balls at the T20 international match against West Indies in St Lucia. Sachin on the other hand, at the age of 16 had completed his maiden half-century against Pakistan in the second Test at Faisalabad on 23 November 1989.
Shafali was born on 28th January 2004, in Rohtak, Haryana. She joined India Women’s National Cricket team in the year 2019 and on 8th October 2022 she was declared the youngest cricket player to complete 1000 runs in T20 Internationals and more under her captaincy, she made India win the 2023 ICC Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup. In the year of June 2021, she became the youngest player, to represent India in all three formats of international cricket.
Her way to success and getting into the Indian squad was not as easy as look like. Her father Sanjeev Verma told the story of her struggle in one of the reports, that, “Most teams refused to play against her. They said she could get hurt and that I would complain if that happened. Even when I insisted she was my daughter and I was okay, most didn’t agree.”
Because of society’s narrow and restricted ways, it was not common for girls to step outside and play sports. But as a father he never let his daughter give up. Mr.Verma came up with a unique idea to deal with the situation. He decided to change her look by giving her a boy-cut hairstyle.
But this was not the end of all the challenges she had to fave. Her neighbors and relatives started taunting her and tried to discourage her from sports. However, those words didn’t affect either the father or daughter. They kept their focus on the target and Shafali continued her practice.
According to the report, Shafali would cycle 8 km every day to practice. She would train with boys, get hit and bruised, and continue the game. In the interview, the youngest female cricketer says, “It was a struggle initially, playing against the boys. I often got hit in the helmet. On a few occasions, they even smashed my helmet grille. But there was no question of giving up.”
On her achievements, the Former Indian Test opener WV Raman took to Twitter and grab people’s attention to catch Shafali’s superb innings on YouTube. His tweet read – “Folks, make it a point to watch Shefali Verma’s innings in the first T20 on YouTube. You will not regret the time spent.”
Staff Reporter
