Shafali Verma has provided fresh perspective to how women’s T20 can be played: Sanjay Bangar
The Indian women's team has reached the final of the 2020 Women's T20 World Cup and a lot of credit for this feat must go to opener Shafali Verma. The 16-year-old destructive player has provided the Women in Blue with explosive starts in almost every game of the league stage. When India's top guns like Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana failed to fire, it was Verma who ensured that the Indian bowlers always had some respectable total to defend.
Former Indian all-rounder Sanjay Bangar has been extremely impressed with the way the teenager has approached her game and paced her innings in the T20 World Cup. He believes that since she is so good at scoring on the off-side, she is a good all-round player as one needs to get into good positions to score on the off-side. He also believes that Verma's fearless brand of cricket is the right way to go ahead.
"She (Verma) scores all around the park—that is one quality which not many people have. It is brilliant that we have unearthed such a talent and it has only taken the load off or provided a fresh perspective to how T20 needs to be played by women cricketers,” Bangar was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
In all of its four games, India were not able to set huge totals on board. But it was their bowling, and especially the spinners, who always took wickets at crucial junctures and turned the game in India's favor. If Mandhana and Kaur, who had a relatively poor tournament, come to the party in the final, then India will surely have a strong chance of beating Australia in their own den -- a feat that they already have achieved in the group stage.
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Bangar feels that the rise of women's cricket in India was due to the good framework by the BCCI and the facilities that they get are as good as those received by the men's team. With fitness level being a top priority, Bangar believes that women's cricket is moving in the right direction.