The Indian women's cricket team defeated Sri Lanka in the Asian Games 2026 final by a huge margin of 147 runs, winning the gold medal. In this decisive match, Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma brilliantly helped the Indian team, providing a powerful start to the game.
Batting first, the Indian team scored an impressive 216 runs while losing three batsmen. In response, the Sri Lankan team managed to score only 69 runs.
During this triumphant victory, the explosive batter Shafali Verma also set a major world record. She broke the record for the highest number of runs scored in a calendar year in women's T20 international cricket.
Shafali achieved this historic result by surpassing the record of Laura Wolvaardt from South Africa, which stood at 824 runs. In the final match against Sri Lanka, held at Korogie Sports Park, she needed only 10 runs to break this record, and she surpassed that mark on the seventh ball of her innings.
This year, Shafali has demonstrated exceptional form, scoring 863 runs in 24 T20 international matches with an average of 39.22. In this grand Asian Games match, her aggressive style was evident: she scored 48 runs, using 3 fours and 3 sixes in just 29 balls.
Although she could not achieve a half-century, together with her opening partner Smriti Mandhana (79 runs), she formed a hundred-run partnership in the first innings, giving the team a solid foundation. This year in T20 format, Shafali has registered 1 century and 7 half-centuries, with her strike rate standing at 162.83.
Recently, in a match against Bangladesh, she broke the record of Kamari Atapattu from Sri Lanka (32 sixes in 2024). This year in T20 international matches, Shafali has hit 38 sixes and 99 fours. Shafali's total number of sixes in T20 format reached 107, which is the highest among Indian players, alongside Smriti Mandhana.