India’s pace spearhead Shikha Pandey on Monday said that the Indian team management has given Shafali Verma the license to play a fearless brand of cricket as the youngster played another flamboyant inning to set up a comfortable win against Bangladesh.
The 16-year-old Verma smashed a 17-ball 39 which included four sixes, to power India to a decent total of 142 for six before the bowlers successfully restricted Bangladesh to 124 for 8 in their 20 overs and claimed the win by 18 runs. Along with Verma, 19-year-old Jemimah Rodrigues also impressed with a stable 34 from 37.
“We have not asked her (Verma) to change anything. She has been given free license to play her fearless brand of cricket,” Pandey said. “She is amazing. At 16, I hadn’t even started training to become a cricketer. I’m very pleased to have such young fearless players in our team. It’s amazing to see them doing what they did for us.”
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Shikha Pandey, who also picked up two wickets for 14 runs, said the likes of Shafali Verma has no “baggage”.
“There’s no baggage, that’s the biggest thing, and they express themselves so well in the team,” the 30-year-old said. “We thought we had a great score on the board to defend today because we believe in our bowling department. We knew it would be a tough target for them to reach.”
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur, however, said that she was hopeful about opener Smriti Mandhana, who missed Monday’s match due to illness, will be fit for their next game against New Zealand on Thursday.
“Hopefully. She is feeling better now, we do have two or three days and I hope she will recover well.”
For Bangladesh, Nigar Sultana was the top-scorer with 35 off 26 balls but didn’t get the support from the other end in the middle.
“Shafali Verma played absolutely brilliantly. But Murshida Khatun played very well with the bat for us she’s in good form nowadays,” Joty said. “We missed some chances in the field and didn’t bowl well enough in the last five overs. We haven’t played many matches against top eight teams, but we’re a cricketing nation.”
