Shafali Verma’s father’s message fuelled World Cup heroics, reveals India star

Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur have shared insights into India's historic Women's World Cup triumph, revealing the inspiration, mindset and key decisions behind the title-winning campaign, including Sachin Tendulkar's advice and Shafali's match-defining contribution.

Hyderabad: Shafali Verma, a late entrant into India’s squad, played a match-winning role with both bat and ball as the Women in Blue
scripted history by winning their maiden ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup title.

As they now set their sights on lifting India’s first-ever ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues reflected on JioStar’s ‘Unstoppable’ about starting afresh in the final, the team’s approach to the big game, and the decisive call to
hand the ball to Shafali Verma.

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India batter Jemimah Rodrigues revealed the advice from Sachin Tendulkar before the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2026 Final:
“Sachin sir called my coach Prashant Shetty. He asked him to tell me that he understood the past couple of days had been a lot for me, the
big knock against Australia in the semi-final, the joy of beating them. But he reminded me that the job was not over yet,” Jemimah said.
“We still had a final to win. He said, try to put that aside and start from zero. That message really helped me reset my mind. I understood
that what you did before does not win you the next game. You must treat every match as a new start. That advice from a legend gave me so
much clarity before the final,” she said.

India hard-hitting batter Shafali Varma opened up about her father’s voice note before the Final. “We had two days off before the final. My dad sent me a voice note. He said, ‘Just work hard. Give your best on the field. And it has to be in writing that Shafali Verma helped India win the World Cup.’ That voice note gave me extra fire. I knew I had to perform not just for myself, but for him and for the team. It pushed me to give everything

I had on the field.” India batter Shafali Varma opened up about her father’s voice note before the Final,” she recalled.
“We had two days off before the final. My dad sent me a voice note. He said, ‘Just work hard. Give your best on the field. And it has to be
in writing that Shafali Verma helped India win the World Cup.’ That voice note gave me extra fire. I knew I had to perform not just for
myself, but for him and for the team. It pushed me to give everything I had on the field,” Shafali revealed.

India Captain Harmanpreet Kaur touched upon about the team’s approach before the big game: “In the past, we have played South Africa many times and won most of those matches. The league game against them had its ups and downs, but we were still confident. The only thing we discussed was: if we bat first in the final, don’t go in expecting to score 300 runs. If you carry that expectation, you will end up making mistakes,” she said.

On handing Shafali Varma the ball at a crucial juncture in the Final, Harmanpreet said: “Even though we had five proper bowlers, I don’t
know why her name kept coming to my mind. I felt it was her day, so I had to use her somehow. Then Laura Wolvaardt and Sune Luus started
building a partnership. That was the moment I knew, I had to bring on Shafali.”

“If that partnership grew, our chances of winning would drop. Chasing 300 on that sticky pitch was not as hard in the second innings because
of the dew. It had rained and the outfield was wet. It was doing a lot off the surface. So, I asked Shafali if she wanted to bowl. She said yes with great confidence: ‘I will bowl, and I will take wickets,” the India captain said.