Sacrifices made to reach final – defying social stigma, lack of resources and juggling jobs between training – makes victory still more extraordinary

Growing up in rural India, Shafali Verma always knew she had a hunger to play cricket. But in her small town of Rohtak, in the north Indian state of Haryana, cricket was not a game for girls. Aged nine, desperate to play, she cut her hair short, entered a tournament disguised as her brother, and went on to win man of the match.

Verma’s determined father, Sanjeev, in the face of refusal from every cricket academy or training centre who would not accept his daughter, enrolled her as a boy. “Luckily, nobody noticed,” he recalled, as Verma made her debut for the national women’s team at 15 years old.