'I had to cut my hair to play a cricket match with boys,' says Shafali Verma after making her debut for India

In India, the gentleman’s game is considered as a religion. Many start playing this sport from a very early age and look at it as their career but the situation is totally opposite for the girls in the country. A girl playing this sport is not appreciated in the remote areas of the nation.

Similar is the story of a 15-year-old Shafali Verma who recently made her debut in T20Is for Team India against South Africa. She failed to disturb the scores in her first innings but delivered in her second T20I where she smashed 44 runs in 33 deliveries that took the Indian headlines speaking positively about the young woman cricketer.

The Rohtak-born cricketer had to face lots of ups and downs during the early stage of her career as in our nation, it is very less found that girls will be seen playing cricket, because of which she was left with the choice of playing with boys but the problem was that they don’t want her to play with them .

Shafali reveals the struggle she had to face for playing cricket

Shafali feels it was very tough for her to rise as a female player because boys thought that she would get hurt and this led her to cut her hair so that they can’t recognize her as a girl or a boy, “I had to cut my hair to play a cricket match with boys as they did not want me to play with them because I am a girl and they used to say that I may get injured,” 15-year-old women cricketer said as quoted by NDTV.

She recalled her practice days as her father used to take her for training with her brother because her family was a big admirer of this game, “My family likes cricket so much. Actually, my father used to play cricket but due to no guidance, he couldn’t pursue his career. My father used to take my brother and me for practice,” she added.

In this series against Proteas, she became the youngest player to make her debut for India in T20Is. Overall, Shafali at the age of 15 years became the second-youngest player to debut for India after Gargi Banerjee, who got her first international match at the age of 14 years.

Watch: 5 talented young India cricketers yet to make their international debuts