On October 27 this year, Shafali Verma was in Surat, ruing yet another washout in the Super League stage of the Senior Women's T20 Trophy. She was leading the run charts, but her domestic team, Haryana, were in danger of getting knocked out of the competition after winning six of the seven games in the group stage.
Then she received a phone call.
India had qualified for the semi-final of the Women's ODI World Cup but had suffered a jolt with their second leading run-scorer, opener Pratika Rawal, ruled out because of an ankle injury. Shafali was not even among the standbys for the tournament, which India was hosting, and hadn't played an ODI for almost exactly a year, but she was called up as Rawal's replacement. On November 2 in Navi Mumbai, she went on to score 87 off 78 balls and take 2 for 36 in the final to earn player-of-the-match honours in India first senior women's World Cup title.
"Life has changed a lot" since the win, she says. "There has been a lot of recognition. There were opportunities to participate in reality shows that we have been watching for a long time now. It is a very different feeling and it feels so good."
That Shafali absorbed the pressure of playing in front of 40,000 spectators at the DY Patil Stadium is part of lore now. But that wasn't even the toughest part of the month for her. She was a contestant in a special episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), a quiz show hosted by Indian movie superstar Amitabh Bachchan, and she says that was more stressful than the World Cup final.
"I have been watching KBC since childhood and have seen so many stars and talented people sit on that hot seat. I don't think there was as much pressure in the World Cup final as there was on that day to answer the questions! Meeting Amitabh sir is a big thing, and it felt good to see him in person."
She treated herself to a trip to Bali, her first-ever vacation, ticking one item off her bucket list. She has since been on multiple reality shows, given a lot of interviews, and also featured on the cover of Vogue India. All that meant she had been home only twice since November at the time we spoke, but she would not have it any other way.
"I met my parents about 10-12 days after winning the World Cup. My father was very happy, he never shows his emotions. My mother was happy too, she started crying. We remembered my hard work. It was a lovely moment to meet them after becoming a world champion."
The moments leading up to the win are still vivid in Shafali's mind. She had cramps in her calf and was in the dugout for the last few overs, but she was among the first to run onto the field when India's win was sealed.
"When Harry di [Harmanpreet Kaur] took that catch, all my pains vanished," Shafali says with a grin. "She was telling everyone, 'Hum jeet gaye, hum jeet gaye! (We have won, we have won!)' It was a very emotional moment because we all know we couldn't cross that line for a few years now. But on that day, we crossed the line and it felt so good."
The eventual win margin - 52 runs - does not show it but the result was not a foregone conclusion until about the final 20 minutes. Laura Wolvaardt's dismissal on 101 turned the tide in India's favour but allrounder Nadine de Klerk's persistence - she was the last wicket to fall - kept India on tenterhooks. After all, de Klerk had secured a win in the group-stage fixture against India, when South Africa were struggling at 81 for 5 before she scored an unbeaten 84 to chase down 252.
"The one thing I have learned from the Australians is that you never should give up until the last ball, and should never get ahead [with your thoughts]," Shafali says. "I was just in the present. I was thinking that we should dismiss Nadine somehow, because she had defeated India on her own [earlier in the World Cup]. So until Harry di caught that, there was no clarity that we would win. We all wanted her wicket. Once that happened, we ran in and it was a very different feeling. The happiest moment of my life.
"When we were waiting for the presentations to start, everyone was giving [Harmanpreet] gyaan (tips): 'You should do this. No, no, do it that way!' Harry di said, 'You all keep quiet, I will do it myself!' Doing the bhangra was probably her idea, I don't know, because even I was part of those giving gyaan!"
That week was in stark contrast a month before. When Shafali was not selected for the World Cup, she turned all her focus upon herself. She had watched only one match of India's campaign, instead giving her full attention to the domestic T20 competition, in which she was Haryana's captain. She made 341 runs in seven innings, including a hundred, all of it at a strike rate of 182.35, and had taken her team into the knockouts.
She describes not being picked for the World Cup as the "saddest thing". "[It] was happening at our home, and to not be there was very tough for me. I accepted that and worked hard on myself. I was in the present and helped my team and juniors out. My focus was on bettering my own performances.
"I just wanted to work harder and capitalise on that time then and there. I did not want to return to a similar position ever again, and I was channeling all my energies into doing well. When I got called up, I don't know why, but I felt I would do well."
Shafali was with her best friend and Haryana team-mate Jyoti Yadav when the call came. "She said, 'This is your chance to show your efforts, and show what [kind of] player you are for the team.' I was very happy, and tried to switch my mindset [from T20s to ODIs] as soon as I could."
Shafali was busy on her first day back in India's ODI side, spending time in the nets before getting to centre-wicket training. She also bowled a fair bit at practice.
"Before the semi-final, I batted for a long time at the nets, so I could get into the mood to handle the pressure," Shafali says. "You all know, there is not a lot of pressure in domestic cricket; there are not a lot of people watching you. So I was trying to make contact with the ball so that I could play under pressure in the semi-final and final.
"My net sessions were quite long before the semi-final and final. It was a very different atmosphere, and I hadn't put myself in those situations. I told myself that this was the time for all my efforts of the past year to come good. So I just thought about executing my plans.
"However, when things did not go my way in the semi-final (she was out for 10 off five against Australia), I only know how I spent the two nights before the final - how much I was crying, how much I was [over]thinking."
The wait for the final to start was nerve-wracking for Shafali. Rain pushed the start time back by two hours. India were asked to bat first. The seventh delivery of the final, from Ayabonga Khaka, was her first ball, and she produced a crisply driven four off it to get going.
"When I walked in to bat, I wanted to execute my plans and did not want to think 'I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to hit a hundred or a fifty.' I wanted to watch every ball with focus. I was telling myself that I have thought about this moment, I also cried about it. Now it is time to execute my plans.
"Because of the rain, the pitch was sticky. I was thinking how much I can play along the ground, and how long I can stay on the wicket. We all knew how much better the pitch would become as the game went on. Smriti [Mandhana] di and I discussed that we need to spend time in the middle and the runs would come.
"Hitting a four on the first ball boosted me, and it felt good. I only aimed to play shots along the ground and hit the gaps. With God's grace, that happened. I was glad and am grateful to have performed on so big a stage. Only I know how badly I wanted to do well in a final, because I had not managed that until then."
But Shafali says the job is far from done. India lost to Australia in the final of the 2020 T20 World Cup, which was her first ICC tournament. She led India's charge with the bat in that tournament but was out early in the final, which still stings. "I am telling you now, we still have to take revenge for the 2020 T20 World Cup," she says - the next edition is just over six months away - "So we all are focused and training for that. There is also the WPL, so we will get into T20 mode."
Speaking of that tournament, Shafali hopes to win a trophy there. Her team, Delhi Capitals, finished runners-up in each of the first three years of the competition.
This upcoming edition, she will miss one of her team-mates a great deal. "One of the saddest things for me is that Meg [Lanning] has gone away from our team," she says. Lanning is to play for UP Warriorz, who outbid DC for her at the WPL 2026 auction. "I was so excited to learn something new from her in the WPL. But it is okay, you have to accept things in life. I am excited to see what I can learn from the different overseas players that have now come into our team.
Her World Cup medal and the Player-of-the-Match trophy from the final have found a prime spot in the trophy cabinet at home."Whenever I feel low in life, I will look at that trophy. That will be the biggest inspiration for me."