Shafali Verma (শেফালি ভার্মা) is an Indian cricketer who plays for the Indian women's national cricket team. In 2019, at the age of 15, she became the youngest cricketer to play in a Women's Twenty20 International (T20I) match for India. In June 2021, she became the youngest player, male or female, to represent India in all three formats of international cricket. On 8 October 2022, she became the youngest cricketer to complete 1,000 runs in T20 Internationals. Under her captaincy, India won the 2023 Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup. She was named as Player of the Match in the finals of the 2025 Women's Cricket World Cup.

Verma was born in Rohtak, Haryana, to father Sanjeev Verma and mother Parveen Bala. She has an older brother, Sahil, and a younger sister, Nancy (or Nensi). All three of them play cricket. Her father, " die-hard cricket fan" who was unable to pursue cricket as a profession due to family pressure, is the proprietor of a small jewellery shop.

Verma began playing cricket at the age of eight. Her brother, a leg spinner, and her father would take her to a local ground to practise in the nets. In 2019, she told Hindustan Times:

"Both would bowl for long hours and I would hit the ball hard. That’s where I learnt this rule – if the ball is there to be hit then it should be hit hard."

Verma's father is a fan of "cricketing god" Sachin Tendulkar, and often watched videos of Tendulkar's innings with Verma and her brother. Tendulkar also became Verma's idol.

Before international cricket, she played for Velocity in the Women's T20 Challenge in which she scored 34 runs in 31 balls. In September 2019, she was named in India's Women's Twenty20 International (WT20I) squad for their series against South Africa. She made her WT20I debut for India at the age of fifteen, against South Africa, on 24 September 2019. She was the youngest player to play for India in a T20I match, and in November 2019 against the West Indies, became the youngest half-centurion for India in international cricket. Against the West Indies, she scored 158 runs in five matches, and was named the player of the series.

In January 2020, she was named in India's squad for the 2020 ICC Women's T20 World Cup in Australia, and was awarded with a central contract by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Ahead of the 2020 ICC Women's T20 World Cup, she was ranked as the number one batter in women's T20I cricket.

In May 2021, she was named in India's Test and Women's One Day International (WODI) squads for their series against the England women's cricket team. Verma made her Test debut on 16 June 2021, for India against England, scoring 96 runs in her first Test innings. The Test match was drawn, and Verma was named the player of the match after scoring 159 runs in her two innings. Verma made her WODI debut for India, against England, on 27 June 2021. She was signed by Birmingham Phoenix for the first season of The Hundred.

Verma is a right-handed opening batter with a prominent bat-swing who occasionally bowls right arm offbreaks. Mithali Raj, who later captained her in both domestic and international matches, first watched her playing in a domestic match between Haryana and Railways, during which Verma scored a half century. In mid 2024, Raj told Lavanya Lakshmi Narayanan, writing for Sportstar:

"She was a bit one-dimensional back then. She would score primarily on the onside. But she had raw power for a youngster."

In the same article, Narayanan observed:

"Starting out, Shafali was a twitchy teenager at the crease, constantly moving around in trying to find a way to dispatch the ball out of the ground. This also threw up errors in judgement of line and length at times which triggered a dismissal."

Early in her international career, Verma was noted to have "big-hitting prowess", a "fearless approach" and a "love" of 'playing in the V' (i.e. hitting to between long-off and long-on). She was also said to have a cover drive "from the book." According to Narayanan, she still had, as of 2024, "... the image of a trigger-happy six hitter ...  quintessential Haryanvi swagger ... unfiltered quality."However, Narayanan also wrote:

"Much has changed about this Rohtak-born batter in her nascent career. She has learnt to expand her striking arc, worked on running between the wickets and a nagging weakness for the short ball, and even her hairstyles."

Verma herself said in mid 2021 that she tries "... to take lessons from every series and keep improving as a cricketer." She had also, she said, been encouraged by all of her national team-mates, coaches and support staff. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her coach Ashwini Kumar set up nets and a bowling