Data check: The big numbers from Shafali Verma’s twin half-centuries on Test debut

Almost every time Shafali Verma walks in to bat for India, she’s the youngest to some new cricketing record. And now, to go with her white-ball exploits, the 17-year-old has dazzled the cricket world with her audacious batting style in the longest format of the game.

Playing her first senior competitive match with the red ball, and in England, the teen added newer stats to her repertoire on Friday as she became the first Indian and fourth woman to score half-century in both innings on Test debut. Mixing picture-perfect defence with picturesque shot-making, she led India’s resistance on the penultimate day of the one-off Test.

Her breath-taking batting was a bright spot for India on an otherwise gloomy day as England enforced follow and less than 50 were overs played due to persistent rain.

Coming in to bat for the second time in a span of 24 hours, she reached her second straight fifty and became just the third Indian woman – and the first in over 35 years – to score fifties in both innings of a Test match.

She is just one of two players in Test history to have made two scores over 50 in the same match at the age of 17. The other,…

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