In November last year, Indian women's team opener, Shafali Verma, faced a setback when she was left out of the squad for the Australia tour.

The selectors took this call after Shafali endured a series of inconsistent performances in international cricket. She had failed to register a single half-century across her last 10 innings.

Her last appearance for India was during the three-ODI series against New Zealand at home, where she returned with scores of 33, 11, and 12. Pratika Rawal, who replaced Shafali as the opening batter in ODIs, has since enjoyed stellar outings in six matches, smashing a hundred and three half-centuries already.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Shafali revealed that getting axed from the Indian squad wasn't the only setback she faced.

The 20-year-old made a disclosure that her father, Sanjeev Verma, suffered a heart attack just two days before the squad announcement. She chose to hide the news from her father during his recovery.

“It’s not easy to get over it. I didn’t want to reveal because my father had a heart attack about two days before I got dropped from the team. I hid the news from him till he got better. He was in the hospital. I told him a week later,” Shafali told the newspaper.

Once Sanjeev got to know about her omission, he wasted no time helping his daughter refocus on her game despite undergoing recovery.

“Father knows everything. Sometimes as kids even we forget our strengths, but they don’t forget,” Shafali said.

“He reminded me of the workouts and drills from my childhood... These are my strengths, and sometimes you need to work on them to remember how good you are at them.”

Shafali Verma played in a couple of domestic tournaments after being dropped, amassing a staggering 527 and 414 runs in 12 games, including three centuries and five fifties. Her strike rates—152.31 and 145.26—highlight her dominance at this level. Moreover, she has worked on refining her game and fitness.

“The constant work is on areas like when deliveries don’t come to my strengths, how do I take singles, how do I rotate strike, how do I build my innings. Everyone knows my strengths, but the constant goal is to mentally get smarter by learning how to build an innings better,” she remarked.