CHENNAI: It was a momentous occasion for women's cricket when Australia and India walked onto a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground on March 8, 2020. No one had seen 86, 174 fans come in for a women's cricket game before.
For two teenagers, then 15-year-old Shafali Verma and 16-year-old Richa Ghosh, it was the biggest day of their young careers. Despite dominating the entire tournament, Verma could not make her mark in the final and Ghosh, who came in as a concussion substitute, played her shots, but it was not enough. Verma was inconsolable after the match, but anyone who watched her throughout the World Cup and even in the tri-series before the marquee event knew the talent the youngster had.
Four years have passed. In this time, they have led India to the first-ever U19 T20 World Cup victory, represented the senior side in the two ICC tournaments and have also been part of the first season of the WPL. Both had contrasting seasons with Verma being the second-highest run-scorer for the Delhi Capitals while Ghosh struggling to find her feet in the star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore. However, one look at the numbers in the second season of Women's Premier League will tell you how much they have grown.
This time, Verma, who opened for the Capitals alongside Meg Lanning is the third-highest run-scorer of the season and Ghosh has performed her role as a finisher and a wicketkeeper to perfection with 240 runs in the season, just behind Ellyse Perry and captain Smriti Mandhana. Verma has scored those runs at the top with a strike rate of 156.85, the highest for any batter with a minimum of 100 runs in the season and Ghosh is third on that list with a strike rate of 143.71. When it comes to hitting sixes, Verma has no close competitor as she has smashed 20 sixes throughout the season. Unsurprisingly, Ghosh with her 10 sixes from eight innings has taken the second spot.
If the first season was contrasting for both, with their performance in this season, they have shown that they belong to this stage. There is an added sense of maturity to the way both of them have gone about their business in this season. Verma always had the talent but after two seasons of WPL, she is looking more polished than ever. Along with her batting, Ghosh has also worked on her wicketkeeping skills. She has gone back to the drawing board and become one of the quality wicketkeepers in the country. Her 13 dismissals in the season are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how dominant her presence has been.
The two players, in their early 20s, facing some of the most experienced bowlers in the world, with that much maturity tells you how important having a competition like WPL is. And that brings us to the final when these two stars faced each other in the final of the second season. Verma did what she has been doing throughout the season.
Even when her captain was struggling to find her feat early in the powerplay, Verma did not let the opposition settle. A six off Sophie Molineux that helped her break free was sublime. It was followed by the 19 runs she scored from the Indian national side's first-choice pacer Renuka Singh Thakur. Even Ellyse Perry could only watch when Verma smashed a full delivery over the bowler's head.
In the powerplay, Verma was batting with a strike rate of 200, before her wicket led to Delhi Capitals collapse — they were all out for 113. Verma had done her job with the bat, on the pitch where every other batter struggled to get the start. Ghosh, fittingly, hit the winning runs as RCB won the 2024 WPL title
The legacies of the franchise leagues, at least on the women's side of cricket are still decided by the push it provides to the existing talent and the bench strength it creates. It is too early to talk about the bench strength of WPL, but what it has undoubtedly done is, provide these budding superstars a platform to express themselves. For now, this is the greatest achievement of the WPL.
Brief scores: DC 113 all out in 18.3 ovs (Shafali 44; Shreyanka 4/12, Molineux 3/20) lost to RCB 115/2 in 19.3 ovs (Mandhana 31, Devine 32, Perry 35 n.o)
