DC's 16-Year-Old Star Leads U23 Team To Glory Two Weeks After Maiden WPL Contract

Star Haryana batter Deeya Yadav, who bagged her maiden Women’s Premier League contract with the Delhi Capitals last month, played a brilliant role in helping her team win the recent Women’s U23 T20 Trophy,

as they went on to beat neighbouring Delhi in the final.

At DC, Deeya will line up alongside her Haryana teammate Shafali Verma. Comparisons with the latter have followed Deeya ever since she first caught attention with her aggressive

strokeplay, smashing 213 off 125 deliveries against Tripura in the 2023 U15 One-Day Cup.

In that tournament too, Haryana had defeated Delhi in the final and Deeya scored an unbeaten 124 in the summit showdown.

Since then, Deeya’s rise has continued unabated. In this year’s Senior Women’s T20 Trophy, she was Haryana’s second-highest run-scorer after Shafali, amassing 298 runs at a brilliant average of 59.6 and a strike rate of 128.

Deeya also shone in the Senior Women’s Interzonal T20 Trophy, scoring 151 runs from five innings at an average of 30.2 and a strike rate of 149.5.

Deeya continued her stellar form in the subsequent U23 T20 Trophy, scoring 255 runs from nine innings at an average of 28.33 and a strike rate of 138.58. Only Bengal’s Sujata Dey, Delhi’s Tanisha Singh and Tamil Nadu’s G Kamalini scored more runs than Deeya.

Against Sikkim earlier this month, chasing a paltry 57, she scored a 15-ball 42, striking at 280, which is the highest strike-rate in the tournament in an innings. Deeya scored 43 boundaries in the tournament, the highest, with Tanisha second with 38.

Deeya attended trials for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the UP Warriorz, according to reports, but it was Delhi who awarded her first WPL contract. She is all set to make her WPL 2026 debut, with the tournament kicking off in less than a month.

While Delhi find their openers sorted with Shafali Verma and Laura Wolvaardt, it needs to be seen if the management decides to give Deeya an opportunity.