Ashwani Kumar, coach of Shafali Verma revealed the young sensation’s admiration for Sachin Tendulkar and the desire to play like him for her team.
17-year-old Indian superstar has been at the centre of attention once again after her brilliant debut in Test cricket against England. She was adjudged the player of the match with two outstanding knocks of 96 and 63 across two innings at Bristol, that helped India draw a Test that almost looked lost.
Ashwani Kumar, coach of the teenage sensation, in a recent interview with Times of India has revealed how Verma takes inspiration from some greats of Indian cricket and like many cricket fans, he too couldn’t resist hiding the fact how her aggressive style of batting always reminds him of Virender Sehwag.
I always told her that you bat like Sehwag. She agrees as well. But she idolises Sachin Tendulkar. She says she wants to be like Sachin Tendulkar.
her coach recalled in an interview with the Times of India.
Speaking at length about the youngster’s mindset on the field of play, coach Ashwani talked about Shafali’s deep admiration for Sachin Tendulkar and her desire to play some Tendulkar-esque innings for her country one day.
After the match (against England), Shafali called me and asked me ‘Coach, how did I play?’. I told her it was outstanding and to keep it up and keep playing match-winning knocks for the country. When I told her to calm down a bit in some situations, she said ‘I will play a Sachin Tendulkar-like innings when my team is in trouble.
coach Ashwani added.
The Rohtak girl is also trying to maintain a good level of fitness as her coach has revealed that she is following Virat Kohli’s fitness regime religiously and has drawn a great amount of inspiration from Virat to switch to a healthier diet plan in order to remain fit.
Shafali was only 12 years old when she first joined coach Ashwani’s academy in Rohtak and the coach was amazed to see the kid smashing one of his senior bowlers for three sixes in an over. To help Shafali’s potential, Ashwani made her play with under-19 cricketers when she was only 15, and he drafted her in the Haryana Ranji Trophy team’s net batter probables where she faced Ranji Trophy bowlers. Coach believed that these steps helped her a lot to prepare for the big stage.
Verma has already played 22 T20 Internationals for India scoring 671 runs and has turned heads with her impressive debut in Test cricket.
