India’s star cricketer Shafali Verma is known for her blistering batting ability and is currently leading the Indian side in the ongoing U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup.
Shafali, due to her fearless batting style, is often compared to India’s veteran opener Virender Sehwag, but she has admitted that her favourite cricketer is someone else.
Shafali revealed that she idolizes and looks up to England’s power-hitter Liam Livingstone. The Rohtak-born explosive opener further termed legendary Sachin Tendulkar as her role model and asserted she grew up watching him play and wants to adapt his calmness.
“I think nowadays, I like Livingstone’s batting because he’s hitting very well, and of course growing up, playing cricket, I used to watch Sachin Tendulkar sir. So of course, Sachin sir is also my role model and I love to see him, how he is playing the game and he’s very calm. And I was also thinking to learn something like that from him,” said Shafali while speaking on the Star Sports show ‘Follow the Blues’.
In the ongoing Under-19 Women’s T20WC, Shafali has so far been in great touch. She scored a storming 45 off 16 balls against South Africa in India’s opening game and then smashed 78 runs against UAE in the next match.
When asked about playing in the U-19 team and India’s chance of winning the inaugural tournament, Shafali responded confidently and stated: “Of course it’s very good, it’s my first and last, because it’s my last year of the U-19, but of course very exciting. We have a good team, we are really enjoying with the girls and I hope we will play good cricket and of course we will be here for the world cup and we will try to achieve that.”
“I would say we are averaging well in batting, bowling and fielding, it’s just the mind-set of how they are taking them, but as a captain, I hope we win the world cup,” she concluded.
Notably, Shafali made her International debut for the senior women’s team at the age of just 15 and has represented India at both ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup (50-over-format) and ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. She also played in the Commonwealth Games 2022 where India bagged the silver medal.
