Women’s T20 World Cup: Shafali Verma given free licence to play her fearless cricket, says Shikha Pandey

Team India pacer Shikha Pandey has claimed that the team management has given Shafali Verma the license to bat explosively after India's emphatic victory over Bangladesh in the ICC Women's T20I World Cup match on Monday (February 24).

Shafali is currently one of the biggest emerging talents in world cricket as she continues to win hearts with her fearless playstyle at the grand trophy event.

"We have not asked her (Verma) to change anything. She has been given free licence to play her fearless brand of cricket," Pandey was quoted as saying by PTI.

"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," she added.

During India's second match against Bangladesh, Shafali scored a quickfire 39 of just 17 balls. She smashed four sixes and two fours in her entertaining knock.

The 16-year-old Indian opener had earlier broken Sachin Tendulkar’s record to become the youngest Indian to score an international half-century in November.

"There's no baggage, that's the biggest thing, and they express themselves so well in the team," Shikha claimed.

"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," she further added.

 

— ICC (@ICC) February 24, 2020

Ahead of India's third match against New Zealand, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur expressed her hopes of seeing Smriti Mandhana, who missed the match against Bangladesh through illness, back into the playing 11.

"Hopefully. She is feeling better now, we do have two or three days and I hope she will recover well."