Fifteen-year-old Shafali Verma’s stature as one of India’s brightest young stars took another steep upward turn on Thursday when she cracked a breathtaking 124 runs from just 78 deliveries for India A against Australia A.
Her knock was laced with 19 fours and four sixes. Verma’s efforts were backed up by her captain Veda Krishnamurthy, who also got to a century to set up their side’s 16-run win.
With the knock, Verma’s rise since the T20 Challenger earlier this year has made the cricket world sit up and take notice continues unabated. She scored two half-centuries in her trademark style against West Indies in the space of 24 hours, comfortably overshadowing Smriti Mandhana on both occasions. The Rohtak-born opener was awarded the Player of the Series for her performances.
In the process, Verma also became the youngest Indian batter to score an international half-century, going the legendary Sachin Tendulkar’s record. The Twitter world also took notice of the quality of the Australia A bowling attack, which included the likes of Molly Strano, who was the Women’s Big Bash League’s highest wicket-taker.
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