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Shafali Verma's rise in Indian women's cricket reflects a generational change: Anjum Chopra - Interview

Exclusive Interview: Former India women's cricket captain and legendary batter, Anjum Chopra hailed teen sensation Shafali Verma's rise in Indian cricket reflects the generational change.

Shafali Vermas rise in Indian womens cricket reflects a generational change: Anjum Chopra - Interview

New Delhi, July 27: Former India women's cricket captain Anjum Chopra is pleased with the performance of the national women's team during the recently concluded multi-format tour of England.

The Indian women drew the lone Test and garnered praise from the cricketing fraternity for coming back strongly in the second innings after being pushed to the walls. The Women in Blue lost the three-match ODI series by losing the first two games. However, in the inconsequential third ODI, the Mithali Raj-led side came back strongly to prevent a clean sweep.

In the T20I series, the Indian eves put up an even better performance and took the three-match series to the third and deciding game but lost it. However, the performances of the Indian eves kept getting better and it was the team's progress that impressed, Chopra the most.

Chopra - who was the face of Women's Cricket in India and played in six worlds finals - seemed happy with the performances of young Shafali Verma and hopes the teen sensation from Haryana has a great international career.

The Delhi cricketer also spoke about the inclusion of cricket in the next year's Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2022 in Birmingham and said the move will help the sport reach a wider audience, which will eventually help more countries playing the sport.

In an exclusive conversation with MyKhel, the Padma Shri and Arjuna awardee cricketer-turned sportscaster spoke, at length about the subjects in women's cricket like Shafali, Mithali Raj, and even demand a level playing field for women's cricket.

Here are the excerpts:

MyKhel: How will you rate the Indian women's cricket team's performance on England tour, which was a multi-format one?

Anjum Chopra: It was a really good tour as the Indian Women's cricket team doesn't get to play frequently. In the last year and a half or two, they have hardly played any competitive cricket, let alone international games. International cricket resumed last year after a gap of three-four months with the Test series between England and the West Indies. Even the Indian men's team played a lot many games but as far as the Indian women's cricket team is concerned they've played just six international games (a limited-overs series against South Africa at home which Team India lost) before the tour of England.

So, by looking at the limited exposure they had in the last 12 months, I think the team has done reasonably well in England across all formats. They have drawn the Test series, made some good performances in the ODIs, and also made quite an impression with their skills in the T20Is. They levelled the T20I series against a strong English side, so it was a commendable effort from the girls, given the match practice they've had.

MK: How would you rate the performance of new coach Ramesh Powar on the tour of England?

Anjum Chopra: It is too early to say if you can only gauge a person's performance on a set of parameters. Under Tushar Arothe, the Indian Women's team went to the 2017 WC Final, under Ramesh Powar the team made its exit from the 2018 T20 WC semi-final, and later under WV Raman, the girls made it to the T20 WC final. So, Powar's performance will only be judged after the team's performance in the ODI World Cup, next year. So, it's still early to comment upon Powar's performance as a coach.

MK: A lot was said about the ODI team's slow run-scoring and players' strike rate against England. What is your take on that?

Anjum Chopra: You can't expect exemplary results from a team that only got to play three ODIs in March this year and three games in July. You need to provide the players with enough match practice before judging them. How many games have our girls played in the last year? From March 8 2020 (the T20 WWT20 Final against Australia) till July 2021, we have played just six ODIs.

How can you judge their performance? If you look at the Indian men's squad, players get 30-40 matches in-between world cups to prove their mettle and cement their spots in the side, but in women's cricket, people are getting critical in a matter of six games. Why?

There's a simple solution, let them play more games organise more bilateral series. The more they'll play, the better they'll get. Let there be a level playing field, let the women's team get an equal number of games as their male counterparts, then perhaps we can discuss the result.

MK: What do you have to say about the performance of young Shafali Verma on the England tour?

Anjum Chopra: I think she has a long way to go. She's a natural striker of the cricket ball, which is brilliant. She has excellent hand-eye coordination, but she still has a long way to go. Talent is there, but there's a stark difference in how she has learnt her game and how the likes of Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur and Jhulan Goswami have learnt their cricket. It's a generational shift, and that difference is very much there for everyone to see.

One hopes that she becomes an excellent international player because hitting the ball is one thing, but cricket isn't just about hitting the ball. Although what I am concerned about is what are the other young players on the side doing. They also need to raise their game.

MK: How will the inclusion of women's cricket (in T20 format) at CWG 2022 help the overall growth of the sport?

Anjum Chopra: It could be seen in two ways: are you looking to promote the event only or are you planning to expand cricket on a global level. CWG is a pretty big event where nearly fifty, if not more, countries participate. It will help increase the number of cricket playing nations as all the member nations will automatically get a chance to participate in an event like CWG.

So, it will be a perfect opportunity for the lower-ranked nations that generally need to play the qualifiers to make it to the big stage like the cricket world cup. The teams will fancy their chances of playing against big sides like Australia, England, India, etc. and that will help improve their game.

Secondly, cricket being a part of a big multi-nation sport in CWG games, will certainly garner the attention of other non-cricket playing CWG nations or non-CWG nations. And the audiences might in the other parts of the world pick up the sport and maybe 10 or 20 years down the line, we'll have a bigger pool of teams. increase the pool of sportspersons.

Therefore, we need to take the game to the audience and CWG and Asian Games are very nice pedestals that help the sport reach the corners it hasn't yet explored. You can take the example of the Asia Cup in Cricket which has encouraged countries like Afghanistan, Thailand, China and several other South-East Asian nations to play cricket.

Story first published: Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 21:28 [IST]
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