India opener Shafali Verma, who scored a blistering unbeaten 69 to guide the Women in Blue home against Sri Lanka on Tuesday said that accepting the flaws in her game helped her develop into a more compact batter. “Cricket always teaches you things, it’s important to accept weaknesses. That’s the only way you can improve. My endeavour is to improve everyday and you will certainly see that in my game,” Shafali said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
“I would like to thank Amol sir. The ball was holding a bit at the start, so I tried to play along the ground and take singles. The coach also told me how to go about in such conditions. They bowled well at the start. It was a good knock. I kept myself calm, tried to play along the ground and the ball was coming on nicely. I knew I can score runs if I play the ball on the ground,” the batter who scored her 12th T20I half century on Tuesday, said.
Shafali hasn’t looked back since she was drafted as an injury replacement for Pratika Rawal ahead of the ODI World Cup around one and a half months ago. She played a match-winning knock of 87 in the final against South Africa and helped India win their maiden ICC title.
Her skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, on Tuesday, equalled the record of Australia captain Meg Lanning, becoming the international skipper with highest number of T20 wins –76. She is expected to surpass Lanning in the next game.
“Really happy with the way we bowled. Bowlers took responsibility and put us into a good situation. Shafali and others batted well,” the India skipper said after another easy win.
She was all praise for the spinners who played their part in setting up an easy victory, especially Sneh Rana, who replaced Deepti Sharma.
“We know what Rana can bring to the team. Deepti’s doing well for a long time.” Young Vaishnavi Sharma had to go wicketless in the first game due to missed catches but she got a couple on the day which made her skipper very happy.
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“Really happy the way Vaishnavi bowled today. We missed a chance off her bowling in the last game.”
(With agency inputs)
