New Delhi: India’s opener Shafali Verma has had a dream start to her Test career. The attacking batswoman scored a fine knock of 96 runs in her debut Test innings of just 152 balls against England Women in the one-off Test match at County Ground, Bristol. The 17-year old added 167 runs for the opening alliance with her opening partner, Smriti Mandhana. When she reached the score of 80 runs, she became the highest scorer as an Indian women player on her Test debut.
However, Shafali played a rash shot and missed out on a well-deserved Test century on debut. India crumbled like a pack of cards as they were skittled out for 231 runs and they lost their 10 wickets for only 64 runs.
England Women decided to enforce the follow-on and Shafali carried from where she left in the first innings. Shafali is unbeaten on 55 runs off just 68 with the help of 11 fours at the end of the third day. Thus, she has become the youngest woman and fourth overall to hit two fifties on Test debut. India Women finished the third day at 83/1 and they are still trailing by 82 runs.
In fact, overall Sachin Tendulkar is the only batsman to score twin fifties in a Test match at a younger age than Shafali Verma. Sachin scored two fifties in 1990 against England when he was 17 years and 107 days old whereas Verma achieved the same milestone at 17 years and 139 days.
On the other hand, Shafali Verma also became the first Indian women player to get out in the 90s on Test debut. The youngster joined former captain Rahul Dravid in this record. Dravid had scored a fine knock of 95 runs at Lord’s on his Test debut in 1996 and Sourav Ganguly had scored a debut hundred in the same match.
Verma will look to carry her form on the fourth day’s play and help the team in reducing the deficit.