ODIs are Deepti Sharma’s format.
The all-rounder loves being given the time to sink her teeth into the surface and then capitalise. It’s a preference she has carried to T20Is too, with mixed results. With the shackles of time looser in the 50-over game, Deepti and others like her have the space to build an innings with less risk, more so when coming in to bat in dicey match situations.
On a warm afternoon in Vadodara, when the sun was sapping the energy of those on the ground, Deepti walked in with India four wickets down against Zimbabwe and more than half the innings still to play. Harmanpreet Kaur, already at 66 off 40, was getting her palms sprayed.
“I felt very good at that time. I wanted to build a good partnership with her because only Richa (Ghosh) was left after that (as a pure batter). Ideally, we wanted to bat together until the 50th over,” Deepti said after the game.
Former India coach W.V. Raman, on commentary for the game, exclaimed with a chuckle, “This situation is right up Deepti Sharma’s alley. She likes to play the ball around, pick up singles, and keep going until the end of the innings before she tries something adventurous. So this is a situation she will relish batting in.”
Zimbabwe was no stranger to this. It knew what Deepti was capable of after witnessing a similar performance in the first T20I between these two sides in Raipur a little over a week ago. The Lady Chevrons had spiritedly reduced India to 19/4 before Deepti came in and tore the script up with polite disregard.
Cut to Vadodara. The visitor’s inexperience and fatigue helped, but Deepti masterfully navigated the conditions and some spirited attempts at containment en route to a sensational century, just her second in ODIs and one that arrived after nine long years. Her first, a 188 against Ireland in 2017, came when she opened the batting and remains the best score by an Indian woman in this format. This one, with her slotted at No. 6, was smaller but just as special.
For a Zimbabwe side partly watching in frustration and partly in awe, it was an education in manoeuvring the field, sweeping to perfection and neutralising every variable to stay in control of an innings. It also came at a sprightlier rate, something she has been attempting with greater success across both white-ball formats recently.
“Whatever came into my radar, I tried to convert into a boundary, not just the loose balls. Whenever I get time at home, I work on my batting with Bala bhaiya. There’s always something to learn and improve on when working with him, and every game gives me notes to take back and helps make me stronger,” Deepti said after the game.
Deepti Sharma’s brother Sumit has played a key role in shaping her batting, using match simulations, targeted drills and power-hitting exercises to prepare her for high-pressure situations.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
Deepti Sharma’s brother Sumit has played a key role in shaping her batting, using match simulations, targeted drills and power-hitting exercises to prepare her for high-pressure situations.
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
In Agra, Bala bhaiya, as her elder brother Sumit Sharma is fondly called, had a nervous viewing experience, hoping his sister would not miss a milestone as she had in Raipur, when she rescued India from trouble in the first T20I with a 37-ball 49.
“She missed a half-century there, so I was praying she wouldn’t make any mistakes. When she came in to bat and I saw how she was hitting the ball, I knew it was her day, and she followed through,” Sumit told Sportstar.
He had trained Deepti for exactly these situations whenever she came home for a break in between a now-packed schedule.
“We do a lot of match simulations when we work together. I set targets for her. In the next six balls, we need 10 runs. Or in one over, we need 12 runs. I tell her we need 45 runs in five overs and let her figure out how to go about scoring towards that.”
In the last three years, especially since the Women’s Premier League has become part of the calendar, scrutiny of strike rate, more so in T20s, has escalated. Even in ODIs, it has spared no one in the Indian top six. Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues have consciously worked on staying above a run-a-ball rate, in their own ways. Harmanpreet Kaur has attempted to access her powerful bat swing more often and even rely on traditional, along-the-ground, risk-free cricket.
Deepti’s sweep shot is both effective and restrictive, depending on how you want to see the glass. So Sumit, in match simulations, would cut off that part of the ground.
“I would cut out runs on the leg side in these target-training sessions. So what’s the point of accessing that side? She has no choice but to find a way to pierce the off side.”
Even the sweep shot has been worked on.
“We’ve tried to curtail the premeditation. Sometimes, when you depend on the sweep, your footwork commits before the ball comes on. Then it blocks you if you don’t get the delivery you’re anticipating. So having a little patience and waiting for the release, then quickly adapting, is a small change she has consciously made.”
Zimbabwe was particularly generous in certain phases, spraying Deepti on the leg stump, which she swept away to backward square for five boundaries.
The need for improvement in power-hitting has been recognised across levels. She works on it within the UP Warriorz fold, in her domestic sessions and when back home.
Wagon wheel from Deepti Sharma’s knock in the second ODI against Zimbabwe. A chunk of her runs came from the leg side. Deepti worked around a packed offside field and generous leg stump line Zimbabwe gave her.
| Photo Credit:
CricViz
Wagon wheel from Deepti Sharma’s knock in the second ODI against Zimbabwe. A chunk of her runs came from the leg side. Deepti worked around a packed offside field and generous leg stump line Zimbabwe gave her.
| Photo Credit:
CricViz
“We work with tennis balls. They are light, so they don’t travel through the air that fast. We try a lot of lifting exercises with tennis balls, where she has to generate the power to send the ball long. We’ve also worked on her downswing. The flow of the bat needs to be very fast here; the swifter it is, the further the ball can go.
“For that, we’ve worked with heavier bats so she builds the capacity to put more force into her shots. We’ve done a lot of sledgehammer and tyre workouts to help with this.”
Deepti, Sumit explains, has maintained notebooks from the time she started playing cricket. Every lesson, every tip, every warning diligently gets documented. Those books are her biggest measure of progress or even regression. If notes from any two days across any timeframe look the same, she knows there’s a problem.
“Deepti is a very good learner. She tries her best to pick up what is explained to her in one go,” Sumit says.
This is easy for her elder brother to say, given Deepti’s unflinching faith in him. Coaches at several other levels have not been able to replicate that complete trust. Sumit knows it too.
“ Aapne Dangal movie dekhi hai? Jo insaan pehelwaan ko pehle se taiyaar karta hai na, bahut bhaavnayein judi hui hoti hain uske aur player ke beech (Have you seen the film Dangal? There is a deep emotional bond between a player and the person who has trained them from the beginning). They know more about the player than the player knows about themselves. It’s not like she doesn’t listen to anyone else, but she’ll always bring what she learns back to me and work on it with me.”
This has been the story since Deepti took up the sport. Sumit couldn’t make a career in cricket, so he made his sister’s development in the game his passion project. She was a coach’s player, ready to take the shape of the container she was put in. She bowled medium pace at the start, but Sumit always focused on Deepti the batter, because that’s what he wanted to be.
Pace brought persistent back problems and uncertainty over selection, so Sumit floated a switch to off-spin. She immediately agreed and is now one of the best in the world, something that Sumit still pauses to digest. That she’s won domestic games for UP, Bengal and East Zone and international games for India, often solely with the bat, is a matter of great pride and vindication for Sumit.
This takes hard work and plenty of repetition.
When she is home in Agra, she’s up at 5:30 a.m. and at the ground for a few hours before the day’s commitments, appearances and meetings take over.
What’s helped fan those flames is the vice-captaincy. Sumit says it has brought out a hunger in her he saw during the 2025 ODI World Cup.
“She gets better with responsibility. Something about a difficult situation brings out the best in her. When she gets smacked for runs or goes wicketless for a game or two, she will come back with a fifer, or she’ll score knocks like this. Remember what she did when India was down 19 for four in Raipur? It’s not the milestone; she wants her name stamped on an India win.
“The two of us often talk about the 2017 World Cup and how we lost by just nine runs. So when they reached the semifinals at home last year, we would have phone calls every day where she said, ‘ Bhaiya, ab nahin chhodna hai. Jaan dena hai, par cup nahin chhodna hai.’ (Brother, we can’t let it slip away now. Even if I have to give my life, we can’t let the trophy slip away.) That kind of hunger, I’d never seen in her before, and it’s the same thing I see now: she’s been handed a role that requires her to step up for India. She waits for that kind of pressure. When things are smooth, her performances aren’t that great,” he chuckles.
Deepti has, time and again, hailed the grit of the opponent and is not one to take inexperience lightly. Zimbabwe has asked some tough questions of the ODI world champion in both white-ball formats, and Sumit presumes she will return home with a notebook that has little room left for more notes.
As has been the routine for a while now, keeping Deepti grounded during the tour is a family activity.
“Faith is a huge source of support for Deepti. Whether she’s touring in India or abroad, we get on a video call every day and recite the Hanuman Chalisa together. She is a huge Hanuman bhakt. She only goes to bed after this. There have been tough times, but it’s all in the mind. Ishwar saath hai (God is with her),” Sumit says.
Published on Oct 28, 2026
