Deepti Sharma has been named Wisden’s Leading Women's Cricketer in the World for 2025. Annesha Ghosh’s piece on Sharma originally appeared in the 2026 edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.
For much of the world, India all-rounder Deepti Sharma first truly announced herself in a split-second action, as she ran up to bowl in the dying overs of an ODI at Lord’s in 2022. Her run-out of England’s Charlie Dean – backing up at the non-striker’s end – ignited a storm that rolled through dressing-rooms, broadcast studios and social-media timelines. Deepti had shown the world she had guts. Her sustained excellence in 2025, with bat and ball, were equally impossible to ignore, and put her stature beyond doubt.
Over nine matches in the World Cup, she produced perhaps the finest all-round campaign the tournament has seen: 215 runs at 30, with three fifties, and 22 wickets at 20, far ahead of the field. No other cricketer, male or female, has achieved a double of 200 and 20 at a World Cup. She made an impact from the first match, hitting Sri Lanka for a run-a-ball fifty, then taking three wickets to help seal an Indian victory. And the final distilled her talents: a half-century, a five-for and a run-out. In front of 45,000 fans at Navi Mumbai, India lifted their first global trophy, and Deepti was named player of the tournament. It was the fulfilment of expectations she had borne since her international debut, in 2013/14, at the age of 17.
“All my career, I had visualised a performance like that,” she says. “It felt like a culmination of years of hard work. A half-century and a five-wicket haul in a World Cup final, against an opposition like South Africa, was the high point.” The fact that India were hosts had added to the pressure. “So much was riding on the growth of women’s cricket in India. I’m glad it all eventually led to something historic.”
It had already been a year of bumper returns. Seven wickets in three ODIs against Ireland were followed by a rollicking 93 against South Africa, her highest score for India since 2017. During the English summer, she became the second Indian woman (after Jhulan Goswami) to reach 300 international wickets. Then came 132 runs in three ODIs against Australia. After the World Cup, against Sri Lanka, Deepti achieved a unique milestone among women: 150 wickets in both ODIs and T20 internationals. Her aggregates for India in 2025 were 617 runs at 44, and 53 wickets at 24.
For too long, she had seemed to fly under the radar. Her role in India’s World Cup triumph changed all that – and she took her inspiration from the previous one. India had been knocked out in the group stage, when they lost to South Africa off the final delivery. “I bowled the last over,” says Deepti. “Mignon du Preez was caught off a no-ball, then made the winning hit. That stayed with me. This time, I took the final wicket, to seal our World Cup win on home soil. Maybe that was how it was meant to be.”
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