The World Cup that India weren't supposed to win
A rocky qualification road. Uncertain selection. And a star who wasn't even supposed to be there. Somehow, they all came together to give India's women their greatest night.
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Twelve wickets. That’s how many international victims Shafali Verma had before today. And when you watch her bowl, there’s this incredible part-time energy to her. She sort of clumps in a little bit and she’s trying things, and she feels like a batter who thinks, “Ah, I might as well have a bowl.” Everything about her screams, ‘I like to bowl in the nets’, rather than ‘I bowl a lot in international cricket’. Or in cricket in general. It’s just not something she does a lot.
But in the Women’s World Cup final, she takes two wickets. She’s got these two different kinds of deliveries. One where she sort of flicks it out with her finger, and the other one where she’s obviously just spinning it. So it is not like she’s got no bowling talent, it’s just that it hasn’t really come together and India haven’t really used her.
I mean that literally, because India did not actually want to have her in the squad. Yet, she’s ended up with 87 runs and two wickets in the most important game in the history of Indian women’s cricket.
India won this World Cup with a part-time offspinner who was a replacement player, and was not even supposed to be in the squad.
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The Indian team has been lopsided from the start of this tournament. It’s actually been quite enjoyable that the normal people who moan about the men’s team have moved over to moan about the women’s team.
But it makes sense. You look at this side and you say to yourself, there’s something not quite right here. They were playing extra batters all the way down the order, and yet never seemed to have enough bowling. Harmanpreet Kaur is obviously a legend, and the 2017 game is still really important - but no one cares about that when she’s bowling her very, very ordinary offspin in crucial games at crucial times. At some stages, I’d almost argue she underbowled herself. And there are other periods where you’re like, ‘Please don’t bowl. Get the ball out of your own hand. You don’t need to be doing this.’
What’s been fascinating about this Indian side throughout the World Cup is that they’ve been in constant development.
Early on, there was just too much batting. And in the final, they had seven bowling options and Harmanpreet didn’t actually deliver anything. So somehow they’ve gone from a team where you just like, ‘They can bat to No.9, but can they ever take a wicket?’ to a team that has bowled out South Africa in a World Cup final to win it.
When you look at the Indian team compared to the Australian team, they’re completely different beasts. The Australian team is one of the more unique combinations we’ve ever seen in cricket. They also went home early and didn’t win the final. But you look at the actual structure of that side, and it is absolutely phenomenal.
And yet, India were the opposite. We were all picking holes in the way that they were selecting teams. On top of that, this was a pretty rocky qualification. There was a brief time where we were all like, ‘They’re not going to make the semi-final. They’re really in some danger here of not going through to the next round.’
If you compare this 50 over run to the men’s run in 2023, that was on rails like around the corner. The men did nothing wrong all the way through. Whereas this was more like a collection of players that they knew were talented, but they never quite understood how to put them together.
Then slowly but surely, as the tournament went on, they kept tweaking it enough and it worked. But weirdly, on top of all of that, an injury might have made the biggest difference.
So there’s always going be a bit of a feeling that they won this tournament a little bit out of turn, in that you could see what they’re building towards.
Even during this tournament, you’re like, maybe the next tournament or the one after is when they’re ready. And they were like - well what about if we just get it all together now? What if we pick extra bowlers? What if our batters go absolutely ballistic and we start making these big totals?
And so the team that looked like they wouldn’t qualify went into the final as favourites, having just beaten the best side that ever existed.
But when I say out of turn, I don’t really mean that they didn’t deserve this. What I mean is it’s like they’ve jumped the queue a little bit. You look at some of the other teams in this tournament, and they’re a lot more experienced, especially in knockout situations and in World Cups. They understand exactly where to put their best players. They might have some holes in their side, but there’s a lot of experience to be able to drag you forward.
This Indian side doesn’t have much of that.
But a collection of players, one after the other, just kept standing up. Like Jemimah Rodrigues in the semi-final, batting out of position and playing like she was born to bat at No.3 and completely structuring the entire innings around herself.
It was a big chase, and often those kind of anchor knocks can really cause troubles. But instead, Rodrigues just allowed for the game to be won around her because she wasn’t going anywhere.
Deepti Sharma had some games in this tournament where you wondered if she was bowling at her best and if she was completely in control. Then she had other matches where it looked like she was going take a wicket almost every ball. She’s such a phenomenally talented cricketer. Sometimes I watch her and go, I don’t think she knows how good she can be yet.
Earlier in the tournament we wrote this big piece about Smriti Mandhana, and about how she’s just absolutely upscaled in every single way. And she hasn’t even ended up being the complete star of this tournament, just because India have had so many plays that are incredible.
But if you go back and see the sort of impact that she has, and also how much she sort of warps the opposition bowling plans. When she’s out there, teams are so hyperconscious of her that they almost sleep on the person at the other end. And if you look, she’s been in incredible partnerships all the way through this tournament. A lot of that is like her gravitational pull. So even when she doesn’t play the great innings, which could argue she didn’t in the final, she’s still so important to this side.
Then you’ve got Richa Ghosh, who came in down the order in one game and just absolutely destroyed the bowling.
That’s like four players. But these aren’t really the legendary names of the past. They might go on to be legendary names.
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If you think back to when Harmanpreet was the dominant player - the Harmonster - everyone knew who she was. Jhulan Goswami, if you go and look at bowling records, especially in ODI cricket, her name’s just everywhere.
She bowled so many deliveries and did it so well over an incredibly long period. Just a brilliant stalwart of a bowler. Then you got Mithali Raj, who played so long, that the entire game changed around her and people suddenly didn’t understand how good she was because she couldn’t whack the ball in T20 cricket. They didn’t understand that in the 1990s, she was a dynamic player. She was dynamic before anyone had even watched a women’s game. So you look at Jemimah and Deepti and Richa and Smriti, and you go - look at the shoulders that these players are standing on.
Harmanpreet is in the side with them. They’ve seen the legends and they’ve not just joined this group, they’ve added to it in a way that Indian women’s cricket has never had before.
The 2017 semi-final, and also the final that they almost won before Anya Shrubsole destroyed them, were the high marks. And they have just leaped that. They’ve beaten Australia, which is what they did in 2017, but they’ve also won the World Cup.
They did it with a young core who can definitely improve further. And during the tournament, they actually had to reshape who they were.
Shafali Verma was not supposed to play in this World Cup, and India were not supposed to win it.