Shabika Gajnabi

Shabika Gajnabi is a talented cricketer who is coming through the ranks for West Indies. She is a top-order batter who can also deliver handy medium pace. Gajnabi is a fearless batter who doesn’t get shy of stepping down the track against spinners to muscle the ball into the stands. 

Hailing from Narsingh Deonarine's town in Guyana, the youngster passionately follows Rohit Sharma and his style of batting. She is a student of the game who calmly absolves the advice given to her and later applies it to her cricket. 

Gajnabi was introduced to the sport by her father and became a part of the Guyanese Under-19 team at the age of 13 years. She has also captained the Under-19 side for three years and led them to the title once in 2018.

The Guyana-born batter made her ODI and T20I debut for West Indies in the series against Australia in September 2019. She didn’t perform much with the bat but took her maiden T20I wicket of Ashleigh Gardner on debut. Later in November, the youngster was picked for the series against India where she got her first ODI wicket.

As Gajnabi failed to impress much in the home series against Australia and India, she wasn’t named in the squad for the World T20 of 2020. Post the ICC event, she toured the UK to play a couple more T20Is but hasn’t left any mark on the world stage.

However, Gajnabi’s Guyana’s record states a different story. The youngster is a very capable cricketer who just needs to translate her potential into performance at the highest level. The Guyanese has been seen as the future flagbearer for West Indies cricket after Stafanie Taylor and Deandra Dottin, she needs to stand on all the hopes. 

(As of April 2021)