On international reappearance, Shafali Verma makes a statement with her bat – are we listening?

There is a line that we hear commentators, which is invariably former cricketers in India, say often. “That’s smart cricket, excellent batting to rotate strike after hitting a boundary,” we are told.

Now, there is no reason to deny that this is smart. These are players who have played the game for years and years, and see the game in a particular light. It is not exactly something you can back up or disprove with statistics easily, either. Going by optics, it evidently pleases many pundits and fans.

But, seen in the context of modern day cricket where match-ups and analytics play a greater role in the game than ever, there is a case to hear the other side of this equation. If you fancy going after a particular bowler or two, and you are seeing the ball well, does it make more sense to maximise the output in one over irrespective of what stage of the innings it is? Instead of hitting a boundary and watching the rest of the proceedings from the non-striker’s end?

On Tuesday in Lucknow, a 17-year-old made a strong argument for this school of thought. With a blistering innings of 60 off just 30 balls, the teenager marked the day of returning to the top of the ICC T20I rankings with one of her best knocks till date. And this is how she went about it:

Shafali Verma in the batting powerplay of third T20I: 4-6-0-4-0-4-0-4-0-0-0-0-6-0-0-0-6-0-6-4-1-4-0.

(49 runs off 23 balls, six fours and four sixes)

In her knock that quickly took away any hopes South Africa might have had of defending a low total, Verma scored just two singles. Out of her 60 runs, 58 came through boundaries and that is the second highest boundary percentage ever in a T20I innings of 50 or more.

It is her style, too. It was during the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, when she last played international cricket a year back, that Verma truly announced her arrival at the world stage. And her preferred approach was to clear boundaries like few others can in the women’s game currently. After all, so early in her career, Verma is already close to breaching the top 10 all-time list for most sixes in the shortest format. Her frequency of hitting sixes is the best in the world in the last five years.

Incidentally though, she has worked on adding more shots along the ground during her time away from the game. “I practised during the lockdown to play in both formats. Trained to hit the ball along the ground more, and practised choosing which ball to go after. This applies for both one-dayers and T20s,” she said after her innings in the second T20I, a match that India could have (and should have) won to have a chance of clinching the series.

Even if the innings in the third T20I was a freak occurrence, Verma showed once again she is the cleanest striker of the ball in Indian cricket along with Harmanpreet Kaur and perhaps Smriti Mandhana. She is one of a kind, because her mindset is truly modern and she comes with no baggage.

Shafali Verma makes six-hitting look easy: Reactions to India opener’s blistering knock against SA

True to her word, though, there was enough evidence during the South Africa series that Verma has worked on adding a new dimension to her game. The commentators were quick to notice when she took a risk-free single early on in her innings in the first two matches. But those improvements have been made to augment what is her strength, not nullify her prowess.

South Africa skipper Sune Luus agreed at the post-match ceremony that Verma can be a headache for opposing captains. “I think when she plays like today (laughs), it is very difficult to stop her. She is a... yeah, she is going to be a legend of the game, I think. She played an exceptional knock tonight, and it is difficult [to set a field] when she is on a roll,” she said.

But, unfortunately, getting on a roll – not just during one innings but carrying on her form – is difficult when there is no clarity on when India play next or whether a bigger IPL-style tournament is even a possibility. Speaking after the third and final match of the T20I series, Verma said she wanted to bat as well as she could on the night because it was going to be her last match and there was time before India’s next series. It was just one line in the press conference but it felt significant.

But more than these interviews, it is the statement that she made on the field that Indian cricket administrators should listen to. Reappearing on the international stage after more than a year, she provided the fireworks, returned to the top of the ICC rankings, clinched the player of the series.

“Bas, aur kuch zyada nahi,” is a phrase Shafali Verma seems to like (nothing more than that). We have heard variations of that whenever she speaks and it is an approach that delightfully translates into her batting. Now, all she needs is enough match-time to make sure she continues improving, she keeps lighting up the international stage, bas aur kuch zyaada nahi.

Are the right people listening?