Is Shafali Verma's absence hurting India's aggressive intent? Decoding the stats

Pratika Rawal and Shafali Verma - (Source: AFP)

On Tuesday, September 30, the India women locked horns against the Sri Lanka women in the first match of the Women's World Cup 2025. The Women in Blue were asked to bat first by Sri Lanka. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side, batting first, lost Smriti Mandhana early on, putting pressure on her opening partner Pratika Rawal.

Rawal, who is making her World Cup debut, has added responsibilities on her shoulders as she has replaced Shafali Verma at the top. Meanwhile, Rawal stitched a slow yet important partnership with Harleen Deol. 

However, Pratika Rawal failed to convert the start into a big total and returned to the pavilion after scoring 37 (59), which featured three fours and a solitary six.

Rawal quickly went viral for her sluggish knock, and the fans slammed her for playing outdated cricket. A few also pointed out that Shafali Verma would have utilised the powerplay well. Meanwhile, this article will shed light on whether Shafali Verma's absence is hurting India's powerplay game? 

Pratika Rawal's Stats In ODIs

Notably, Pratika got off to a flyer in ODI cricket as she is the fastest Indian to 500 ODIs. At present, Rawal has played 18 ODIs and already scored 839 runs, averaging 49.35. Let's look into Rawal's stats in ODIs.

Key Observations

• Rawal is a perfect definition of consistency as she averages a whopping 49.35 after 18 innings. Further, she is close to 1000 ODI runs and has heavily contributed to team's success in recent times.
• Strike-rate continues to be a big issue for Rawal as she even fails to maintain a strike-rate of 100 and can only boast 83.64 strike-rate, which has indeed hurt India. 

Pratika Rawal vs Shafali Verma Stats Comparison

Before Pratika Rawal, Shafali Verma used to open the innings alongside Smriti Mandhana. Labelled as the lady Sehwag, failed to maintain a consistency like Pratika, which is why she saw her ouster from the Indian team. 

Also, Shafali carried a perception that she is the aggressive batter, but interestingly, that is not the case. To understand this better, let's look at Shafali's stats and compare it with Pratika Rawal. 

Key Observation

• The perception that Shafali score runs at a faster rate than Pratika Rawal is wrong as the former has a lower strike-rate than the current India opener.
• Not only has Pratika Rawal batted with more consistency, but she has a slightly better strike-rate than Shafali Verma.
• Why the perception? It is because Shafali bats with a strike-rate of 132 in T20Is, but it  drops significantly to 83 in the fifty-over format.

Conclusion

The fact that Shafali Verma's absence is hurting India's powerplay game is wrong as she herself wasn't too aggressive in the fifty-over format. However, it doesn't deny the fact that Pratika Rawal needs to up her game and bat a little quicker.

Ideally, in the modern-day game, Rawal should aim to bring her strike-rate up to somewhat 110 or 120. 

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