The things a daughter does for her father! India Women’s Cricket Team star batter Shafali Verma reveals how she hid the news of her getting dropped from the team from her father. The reason? Her father suffered a heart attack just 2 days back. With the condition of the family in turmoil, Shafali decided to hide the information from her biggest confidant.
Shafali Verma then informed her father about getting dropped from the team after a week. And it was what she feared the most. Her father decided not to rest and immediately started to coach her. In the meantime, Shafali has been taking part in the Senior Women’s One Day Challenger Trophy where she plays for India A.
Shafali Verma thankful to her father
“It’s not easy to get over it. I didn’t want to reveal because my father had a heart attack about two days before I got dropped from the team. I hid the news from him till he got better. He was in the hospital. I told him a week later,” Shafali told The Indian Express.
Her father Sanjeev had been her first coach and decided to try the very best for her daughter. He donned the role of a mentor helping her through work-out and drills and sharpening her strengths. The aim for the 20-year-old is very simple – A return to the Indian Cricket Team.
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“Father knows everything, sometimes as kids even we forget our strengths but they don’t forget. He reminded me of the workouts and drills from my childhood, and helped me to do the same. When I started, we had these knocking drills – where I play on-drive, straight drive and that’s what I worked on. These are my strengths and sometimes you need to work on them to remember how good you are at them,” Shafali says.
And it is safe to say that her training worked wonders. Across two domestic tournaments she went on to score 527 and 414 runs respectively from a collective total of 12 matches. In the meantime, she showcased her form by slamming 3 centuries and 5 half-centuries. “The constant work is on areas like when deliveries don’t come to my strengths, how do I take singles, how do I rotate strike, how do I build my innings – this last thing is a work in progress throughout. Everyone knows my strengths, but the constant goal is to mentally get smarter by learning how to build an innings better,” she concluded.
