After shocking retirement of Mithali Raj from T20 internationals, another alarming news which splashed on Thursday was that a 15 year old talented girl named Shefali Verma would be playing for India in South Africa series. Shefali is playing cricket since the age of 10, and said to be inspired by Sachin Tendulkar. Also she gathered the limelight with her spectacular performance in women’s T20 Challenge Championship 2019 as a strong contender in team Velocity.
The reason of retirement given by Mithali is that she needs to focus on 2021 World cup and so her retirement could give opportunity to young girls as well. The semi-finals of T20s against England in November 2018 which excluded Mithali Raj and the simultaneously exclusion in February T20 International against New Zealand has somewhere disheartened the spirit of Mithali, according to the sources.
The brighter side of this whole scenario is that Rohtak girl Shefali Verma is getting a golden opportunity to perform in Indian Team. She is among the youngest players to crack the team. According to her, she got inspired to play cricket by the game of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar at Lalhi field.
Shefali said, "The number of people who stood up to see Sachin sir were outside. That's when I realized how big it is to be a cricketer in India, especially when you are revered like Sachin sir.” Shefali is practicing cricket since past 5 years and played three seasons for Haryana. Her favourite players comprise of Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur.
