16-year-old Shafali Verma eyes World Cup glory

16-year-old Shafali Verma has turned out to be an overnight sensation in Indian women's cricket over the past year. Her best memories of playing cricket were turning up disguised as her own brother Sahil and playing a game of cricket, which motivated her to play for India one day. She has formed a formidable opening combination alongside Smriti Mandhana and is one of India's 'X factors' going into the mega event.

"After cutting my hair I went to play with the boys and they did not even realize that I am a girl. But they got it after a few days and felt happy," Verma told AFP.

"That motivated me and I became serious for cricket and began to work hard to emulate my idol," she further added.

Verma also gave credit to her father, who provided her the best possible facilities despite their modest background and helped her in concentrating on practising hard. Her talent was recognized and she was picked to play for the Velocity team in the Women's T20 Challenge. She shared the dressing room with veterans like Mithali Raj and England's World Cup winner Danielle Wyatt, who also labelled her the 'next superstar' of Indian cricket.

Making her T20 debut in September last year, Verma broke the 30-year-long record held by Sachin Tendulkar by becoming the youngest player to score an international half-century, in only her fifth T20 against the West Indies.

Shafali's father Sanjeev, who is proud of his daughter's efforts so far, claimed that he has full confidence that his daughter will win India the T20 World Cup which is set to begin next month in Australia and also spoke about the 2021 50-over Women's World Cup.

"(Shafali) will take women's cricket to greater heights and get India the women's World Cup -- T20 and ODI," Sanjeev asserted.