Why Deepti Sharma is a cut above
The cricketer's all-round masterclass in the ODI World Cup and skyrocketing valuation in the Women’s Premier League has moved her from the fringes to the spotlight
Last Updated: Dec 11, 2025, 11:34 IST2 min
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Deepti Sharma’s entry into cricket was fortuitous. The Agra girl was spotted by former player Hemlata Kala when one of her throws, fired from the sidelines of a match she had gone to watch as a kid, uprooted the stumps a good 40-odd metres away.
As far as accidents go, women’s cricket in India couldn’t have asked for a happier one. For, years after that chance discovery, the 28-year-old would go on to become key to India’s historic first ODI World Cup triumph. In a tournament that had a slew of stellar Indian performers—Smriti Mandhana, Pratika Rawal, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma and the likes—Sharma stood out as the most definitive. She walked away with the Player of the Tournament award after scoring 200-plus runs and taking 20-plus wickets, becoming the first cricketer ever to achieve the double in a single edition of the World Cup. But that’s not all.
A month later, Sharma continues to make headlines as the most expensive cricketer in this year’s Women’s Premier League (WPL) auction, ahead of the likes of Amelia Kerr, the Player of the Tournament in the women’s T20I World Cup in 2024. Picked up by the UP Warriorz (UPW) for Rs3.2 crore, up from Rs2.6 crore in the inaugural auction, the allrounder’s price tag is also the second-highest ever in the league—after Mandhana’s Rs3.4 crore (for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in 2023).
“In my first year in the WPL, I had told Deepti that while everyone is talking about other players, she was the only premium Indian all-rounder around, and that she should be the face of the WPL,” says Lisa Sthalekar, former Australia captain, commentator and now the mentor of UPW, Sharma’s WPL team in the first three seasons. Her words were vindicated in 2024 when Sharma emerged as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the second season that included the league’s first hat-trick by an Indian.
But, for most of her career, Sharma remained a cricketer whose impact was felt more than being spoken about. Public memory is too fickle to remember that while Harmanpreet Kaur had gone on her genre-defining rampage of 171 in the 2017 ODI World Cup semifinal against Australia, it was Sharma who held the other end down to stitch a partnership of 137 runs over nearly 14 overs. Or that, in 2023, she single-handedly defeated England in a Test match in Mumbai, taking nine wickets across two innings and scoring a half-century in the first.
India’s World Cup victory followed by her record-breaking valuation at the WPL has finally made Sharma a household name, enabling her to step out of the shadows of her more recognised and flamboyant colleagues. And that’s no mean feat.
Asked in a previous interview with Forbes India which she enjoys more, batting or bowling, Sharma had shot back: “Why just these? I enjoy fielding too.” It betrayed Sharma’s obsession with the sport, and, at this moment, it is cricket that’s richer for it.
First Published: Dec 11, 2025, 11:41
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