Shafali Verma, are you even for real?

If you think Benjamin Button’s a curious case, sample this. 

A 15-year-old from Haryana debuts for the Indian women’s side after impressing everyone with her six-hitting ability in the Women’s T20 Challenge. She starts hitting those sixes at the international level too, and by the time she’s 16, she’s playing well enough to feature in a World Cup final with 84,000 humans gawking at her talent at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. 

But here’s the catch. While her upsides were insanely good, her failures were frustratingly bad. So much that you find it hard to trust her defence in critical situations. You know a release shot will come masquerading as a wild slog full of attacking intent. You know it will be followed by the teenager taking a dejected walk back to the pavilion. 

However, when that 15-year-old turns 17, she makes her Test debut and bats like a monk. You can see her elbow going high, the bat and helmet aligned in straight lines, and her bat face facing the ground to blunt the ball. Oh, and her childish face is poised in so much concentration. She scores 96 on her Test debut against England in England, facing the likes of Katherine Brunt, Anya Shrubsole and Sophie Ecclestone. 

Despite all that, Shafali Verma averages just 23.5 in 26 ODIs and 23.9 in 73 T20Is but 35.06 in the Women’s Premier League (WPL), where she opens the innings with legendary Meg Lanning. Suppose that doesn’t confuse you enough about her batting. What if I tell you that counterintuitive to her entire outlook as an aggressive batter, she averages 60.33 after batting 10 times in Test cricket with a strike rate of 74.1? 

What even is this anomaly? Who is Shafali Verma, the batter?

The answer couldn’t have been more emphatically delivered than her 205 off 197 balls at Chepauk against South Africa. 

For now, keep aside the fact that she became the owner of the second-highest score in a Test innings by an Indian woman. Also, don’t dwell on the fact that it was the seventh-highest score in women’s Test history. Just focus on how Shafali batted on June 28 (Friday). 

The Chepauk pitch was placid from the first hour itself, and the Proteas pacers fell flat like a punctured tyre after a few disciplined overs to begin the day with. 

If you have seen Shafali bat, you know she'll not stop hitting once the conditions are in favour. Yeah, she might defend a few balls on the stump to maintain a semblance of aesthetics in her batting. Still, the cross-batted slogs, which are as synonymous with Shafali as mud wrestling with Haryana, will inevitably arrive. 

However, that was the thing about today. The slogs never came. 

What was in front of us was a model Test opener, playing everything within her body, meeting the ball beneath her eyes, and even moving her feet to complete near-perfect weight transfer on most of her shots. 

It was a version that we had seen earlier in Bristol, England. However, her slogs were her release shots then. 

Today, she just looked to hit everything on merit. The Proteas pacers shifted to good and back of a good length bowling after Shafali and Smriti Mandhana easily negotiated the new ball. That’s when Shafali just stood outside her crease, waited for the deliveries to come, and focused on creating a perfect rendezvous between her bat and the ball. 

Hence, you’ll find so many of her boundaries on the leg side coming through flick shots and on drives against pace. She was showing the full face of the bat and working the ball around on both sides of the wicket with ease. And in between, the singles and the doubles kept coming. 

In fact, the tempo at which Shafali batted on the day never felt like that of a Test match. But this is why the longest format of the game is so unique - no matter how counterintuitive your methods can get from what is perceived to work, as long as you are disciplined and efficient, you’ll be okay. 

That’s why a Rishabh Pant can exist in the same space as a Cheteshwar Pujara. And that’s precisely why Mandhana loves to bat so much with Shafali Verma in Test cricket by her own admission after the game. Not only is their contrasting style hard for the opposition to deal with, but it also allows them to play themselves in the game as per their modus operandi. 

Read - Mandhana, Verma and the art of Proteas pulverisation

As soon as the spinners came on to bowl, Shafali brought out her slog sweeps and sharp cuts. While left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba was hit only once for a six by her, off-spinner Delmi Tucker was sent down the ground five times. So efficient was Shafali in her spin-hitting that out of the nine times she charged down against spin, five times she attained a maximum. 

And mind you, none of these sixes were just crossing the boundary. They were proper monsters, falling way behind the green area of the ground. 

This was a great example of partnership and matchup batting and a testament that this is no longer the 17-year-old who would be happy to win small battles but lose the war. She will grind it out, and when she gets the chance, then she’ll not hesitate to polish off the entire table dished out to her. 

That’s why while batting on on 187, she smashed two consecutive sixes to Tucker and reached 199* to complete only the second double hundred in the history of Indian women’s cricket on the next ball. This was the same fearless Shafali who once made the world turn their heads to her at 15. But this was also a different Shafali whose game has improved enough to accentuate the best aspects of her batting. 

That’s the reason that while she could score eight sixes in a single Test innings when no woman has scored more than two, she could also see out the new ball and earn boundaries just by timing and placement. 

In the end, she returned to the pavilion with the fastest-ever double hundred in women’s Test history, becoming the only second Indian batter to score a double hundred at more than a run-a-ball after Virender Sehwag. India also notched up 525/4 on the day, which is the most runs scored ever in a single day of Test cricket (men’s or women’s). 

All of this was possible because of one curious case of a batter, Shafali Verma, who decided to show the substance in her batting along with the style that she always had. Maybe it’s the whites that bring out the best of her. Perhaps it’s the red ball and open fields. 

However, if there is one thing sure about this anomaly of a cricketer, it is that entertainment is guaranteed. And what more can women’s Test cricket ask to get the eyeballs it deserves and needs?

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