Victim of a conman’s deceit, Shafali Verma’s father was once left with just Rs 236 but he still nurtured a World Cup winner

Here’s a tip off to the Bollywood and OTT content hunters – Go to Sunaar Gully and find Sanjeev Verma. Shafali’s father is sitting on a script to die for. It’s the Oscar-winning movie “King Richards” playing out in Haryana. Replace Williams sisters with Shafali and her brother; father Richards with Sanjeev.

One lived in California’s notorious city Compton and gave tennis lessons to his daughters in the public courts littered with smashed beer bottles, in areas infested by gangs and drug peddlers. For the other, life was dangerous, his life was all about looking for a clearing good enough to play cricket in crowded Rohtak.

pic.twitter.com/C0rdWt4V4q

— Shafali Verma (@TheShafaliVerma) November 5, 2025

The space under a half-built flyover, on streets before shop shutters went up, parking lots or corners of maidans, where weddings took place – this father’s search for 22 yards was perennial.

Sanjeev says he is a kaarigar (craftsman) who makes ornaments. But that’s just a front. He is into polishing a cricketing diamond, the one that shone brightest at DY Patil Stadium on the magical evening of November 2, 2025.

Five winters back at Rohtak, during an afternoon of a pillion ride on his well-serviced old Hero Honda, Sanjeev had given a guided tour to the places where he, Shafali and her younger brother would travel before the city woke up. He had the confidence of a self-made man and also the vulnerability of someone who had lost it all.

Men in Rohtak aren’t known to shed tears. Though Sanjeev that day had wiped his moist eyes, tried to hide his face by turning sideways a few times during the conversation. It happened first when he was speaking about the day he was left with just Rs 236 – that was all the money he had to take care of his wife and three children. A conman had cheated him of his life-savings and wife’s gold jewellery. An imposter posing as a RAW official had promised Sanjeev a permanent job but it turned out to be a bait to pinch all his money and valuables.

ALSO READ | Shafali: ‘I hid news of being dropped from Indian team from my father, who had suffered a heart attack’

Sanjeev was broken but all wasn’t lost. No cunning, deception or adversity could steal the Verma household’s priceless jewel – the talent in the family’s middle child Shafali.

Despite the tragedy, the early morning bike rides didn’t stop. All that changed was a detour. Now the three would first go to the marshland next to Rohtak’s reputed English medium school, which only the moneyed could afford. The cricket players from there wouldn’t bother to go searching for the balls that flew over the school’s boundary wall. So Sanjeev would ask his children to search for the ‘lost’ balls that they would use till the seam burst open.

After the stop-start bike ride, Sanjeev extended an invitation to visit his home, where a leather ball tied with a string and hanging from the roof greets one from the porch. There is a distinct asymmetry about the verandah. Not far from the hanging ball is a raised platform that had a glass case with imitation jewellery. Sanjeev says he pulled down the wall of the small room that worked as his shop so that the kids train at home.

Under-19 skipper Shafali Verma’s father celebrates India’s World Cup triumph at the Rohtak club where his daughter trains. pic.twitter.com/WvkHdjsXFJ

— Express Sports (@IExpressSports) January 29, 2023

There was one constant advice that the father would impart to Shafali. It was to hit the ball hard and never get intimidated by bowlers, regardless of their reputation. Just days before the meeting with Sanjeev, Shafali had taken Ellyse Perry, the top Aussie pacer of that time, to the cleaners in a tri-series. This was a game after Perry had got the Indian prodigy out. The dismissal had peeved the father. “I said ‘are you mad? How come you got bowled. You should have followed the ball closely’.”

The father’s words had an impact. Shafali would hit four boundaries in one Perry over. “I had told her ‘sahi kiya, yeh Perry poori aave na toh unko tod diyo‘.” (You did right, whenever you face the likes of Perry, just smash them).” If the Shafali story makes it big, scriptwriters are going to have it easy. Her father speaks in punchlines.

After her India debut in 2019, Shafali’s career didn’t go as planned. She continued to play aggressively but she was often blamed for not playing to her full potential. Those who backed her would get frustrated. Shafali was entertaining but lacked consistency.

Shafali’s parents Sanjeev and Parveen with their younger daughter Nancy. (Pic: File)

For Indian women cricket’s moment of truth, the girl with a spark was missing. Shafali wasn’t picked for the World Cup. It came at the worst possible time, when the team announced Sanjeev was in hospital recovering from a cardiac episode. Life seemed unfair, the Vermas deserved better.

But just before the semi-final, opener Pratika Rawal would get injured. Shafali, a player not even in reserves, would get a call up and would finish as the Player of the match in the final. Who’s writing Shafali’s script? It’s her father.

Footnote: Within minutes of settling at Shafali’s home, Sanjeev would ask his wife to serve tea and wake up Nancy, the youngest of his three children. The child would enter the living room rubbing her sleepy eyes. Like a parent asking a child to sing nursery rhymes to impress a guest, Sanjeev would ask Nancy to get her tiny bat and hit the hanging ball. Nancy would smash the ball with such power that the china on the tea table was under threat. Nancy is 12 now and she is part of Haryana’s under-16 probables. Sanjeev is a kaarigar who is into polishing cricketing diamonds. Plural.