Women's World Cup Qualifiers 2017: Meet MS Dhoni's counterpart Sushma Verma

On Friday, the Indian’s Women’s cricket team registered their third straight victory in the ongoing ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifiers 2017. Having got the better of Sri Lanka and Thailand in their first two matches, the women in blue trounced Ireland by a massive 126 runs in the third game.

With this humongous victory, India have ensured themselves of a spot in the Super Six stage of the competition, alongside fellow favourites, South Africa.

Sportskeeda spoke to India’s wicketkeeper, Sushma Verma just before she set off to Sri Lanka for the tournament. At the time of this interview, the Puma athlete was in Rajkot playing a domestic T20 tournament. After a few phone glitches, we get down to business.

“It’s not necessary that when the tournament inches closer, you need to practice more and spend more time. Ever since I have been playing cricket, it’s been a daily routine. We practice in the morning for 2 hours and start again in the afternoon till it doesn’t get dark”, she said about her preparations for the all-important qualifiers.

Verma is the only wicket-keeper in this talented Indian squad. Born in Shimla, cricket didn’t come naturally to the 24-year old. A newspaper advertisement planted the seed of inspiration post which she hasn’t looked back.

“When I started playing cricket, in April 2009, the same year I got selected for the state team. I kept playing matches early on. I got an idea of what needs to be done and the kind of workouts I need to do in order to play at the highest level”.

Verma began her tryst with the game at the age of 17. While other things may not have been certain, she was confident about her quickness. “I used to play handball, badminton, volleyball in my school days. Since I started playing cricket late, I had to spend more time to adopt the skills”.

She also put to rest some rumours doing the rounds about her early days. “Haha no, it’s not true, this is wrong information”, Verma explains when asked if she started her career as a medium pacer”.

“Initially when I went for the trials, I had applied in all the three departments (batting, bowling and wicket-keeping). But later after 3-4 months, I got to know that I am going to be a wicket-keeper. I had no idea that I wanted to be a wicket-keeper. My coach thought I was good”.

Verma used to play with the cosco tennis ball and found it easy to catch it from behind the stumps. As a result, the selectors figured she’d make a good keeper. It may all have been unplanned, but the end result turned out pretty well. She’s an integral part of the women’s cricket team.

While their male counterparts have been setting some high standards when it comes to fitness, Verma points out that, there’s been some changes in the woman’s side too. The Virat Kohli effect seems to be rubbing off on everyone these days. She reckons that the standard of fitness has improved by leaps and bounds, since she made her India debut, back in 2013.

Being India’s premier wicket-keeper, Verma also had the opportunity to meet MS Dhoni. “We had gone to Australia and they were also playing in Adelaide. They had come for a practice session and ours was just coming to an end, both our practice areas were really close. He was just walking past us and all of us clicked a picture with him. We didn’t talk much”, she reveals.

With talented batters like DB Sharma and Kamini (scored 113 not out in their last match against Ireland) in the squad, Verma realises that her chances of shining with the bat are slim,” I know that our batting line up is already very strong. I know that I won’t get a chance to bat but if I get promoted, I will do my best to score runs”, she signs off.