NAVI MUMBAI: Around 5.30 PM on Tuesday, as the Indian team emerged from the shadows to train ahead of the World Cup semifinal against Australia, all eyes were on one player — Shafali Verma. Having landed in the city the night before after being named as Pratika Rawal’s replacement, it was her first training session with the team; possibly since the T20I series in England a few months ago.
Donning her T20I jersey and training shirts — unlike the rest of the team, who were in full training kits — Verma stood out. After the warm-ups were done, she stood alongside some of the usual suspects at the top of the batting order — Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, Harleen Deol, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh and Amanjot Kaur — with head coach Amol Muzumdar addressing the huddle. The discussion went on for about 10-15 minutes before they all went their separate ways.
Verma went to the B ground where she would bat alongside Deol. Meanwhile, Mandhana and Harmanpreet batted together at the other net. But as expected, all eyes were on the 21-year-old Haryana batter. She faced a left-arm spinner (a net bowler who resembled R Sai Kishore in stature and action), a leg spinner (another net bowler) as well as teammates Amanjot Kaur and Sneh Rana. She started with conventional shots, but it did not take long before she went her own way. An attempted reverse sweep came out against Rana off the fourth delivery she faced. She would go on to try it three more times, albeit unsuccessfully, but that was not the highlight of her stint.
A little while later, she tried to upper cut Amanjot before bringing out the big shots against the spinners all over the B ground. In between stints, she had a chat with Muzumdar, who seemed to be suggesting that she loft with a straighter bat rather than going for cross-batted shots. Over the next 15-20 minutes, she would try to hit the bowlers more over cover and down the ground while defending balls on merit. Once she switched nets, pulls would come out against throw-down specialists and Arundhati Reddy. Not long after, she was back at the main ground, facing Renuka Singh Thakur and Kranti Gaud. The Madhya Pradesh pacer tested Verma with her pace while the opener took on Renuka comfortably. Although she did play one on back to the stumps, that did not stop Verma from going for her shots.
If her batting stint went as expected, the interesting aspect was Verma bowling a fair bit. Last year, she was used regularly by Harmanpreet, and here she was bowling to Mandhana and Deepti Sharma, with Aavishkar Salvi interrupting to have a chat on her lines and lengths. While it is too early to say, it should not come as a surprise if she rolls her arm over against Australia on Thursday. Shortly after she was done with her training, Verma came out from the dressing room once again. She went on to complete her media commitments to the ICC and BCCI before walking back to the hotel alongside Renuka and her teammates.
No individual team has beaten this Australian women's team single-handedly, not since Harmanpreet’s 171 not out eight years ago. Thursday is going to be no different as India will need not just Verma but the entire team to come together and play a perfect game. But on Tuesday, for about four hours, it was all about Verma and what she was doing to get ready for the all-important semifinal.
Richa trains
Richa Ghosh, who suffered a finger injury during the clash against New Zealand and missed the Bangladesh match, was monitored by the support staff as she did keeping drills for about 15 minutes before a short batting stint.
