Young Shafali Verma’s contributions at the top of the order helped India in their march to the final of the Women’s T20 World Cup that ended last month. The 16-year-old, though, will get better with experience and fitness, feels Mithali Raj.

Talking to The Telegraph from Hyderabad, the India women’s ODI captain said: “Right now, she (Shafali) is inexperienced. Of course, she is loaded with talent and considering it’s just the beginning for her, having played only four tournaments, she will have to keep adapting her game because all teams nowadays do video analysis and take the help of other technologies to find the chinks in your armour. And they will come prepared, bowling to plans.”

Shafali replaced Mithali in the T20I squad last year, after the former announced her retirement from cricket’s shortest format. In what was her maiden ICC tournament, Shafali was the highest run-getter for India, aggregating 163 from five matches at a very impressive strike rate of 158.25.

“Shafali pretty much has all the shots. It’s just that she needs to work a bit on her temperament, which she will probably with more matches,” Mithali said. “And of course, she needs to work on her fitness too.”

Except Shafali and current Bengal player Deepti Sharma, none of the other batters in the Indian team could total three figures in the T20 World Cup. According to Mithali, the team is a bit over-dependent on its top order.

“We have always banked on our top order. Jhulan

(Goswami) and Shikha (Pandey) can play the long handle, but the others need to contribute more.

“The Indian team does not have that kind of depth that the Australian team has in terms of batting. For us, it is only about the top four.

“At the World Cup, barring Shafali who was getting those 30s and 40s, the top order could not contribute much. To some extent, Deepti was trying her best to get some runs in the lower-middle order.

“So if the top four don’t get going then we don’t have someone who can give us the big-hitting towards the end when the required rate is nine runs per over or when it comes down to the last five overs.

“We still need to groom someone for that spot. I think Pooja Vastrakar can be groomed for that,” she explained.

Mithali feels it was the form of the bowlers that helped India reach the final. “We did have a very experienced bowling unit in terms of Shikha or Rajeshwari (Gayakwad), Poonam Yadav and Deepti. Their experience really paid off.”