The Delhi Capitals inflicted hosts Royal Challengers Bangalore’s first loss of the second season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), winning by 25 runs at Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday.
Chasing 195 runs for victory, it was well-and-truly the Smriti Mandhana show at the Chinnaswamy as the RCB skipper single-handedly exerted tons of pressure on the DC bowling helping the hosts reach 52 runs after the Powerplay, of which 45 runs came from Mandhana’s bat.
The southpaw kept RCB in the game, even as Devine found it tough to get going at her end and got to her maiden WPL half-century, off 32 balls.
Devine finally got going with two consecutive sixes off Minnu Mani but fell in the next over (23 runs off 17 balls) to give Arundhati Reddy her first wicket.
With RCB needing 85 runs in the last 10 overs, DC found themselves marginally ahead in the contest but with Mandhana still in the middle, they could not relax just yet.
The southpaw and the in-form Sabbhineni Meghana kept the asking rate in check with some measured batting, but DC nudged significantly ahead in the contest when they removed Mandhana (74 runs off 43 balls), bowled by Marizanne Kapp.
The onus to take RCB home fell on Meghana and Richa Ghosh and at 138 for 2 after 15 overs, needed to take the hosts home in a tricky chase. But the wicket-keeper batter fell off the first ball of the 16th over for 19 to DC’s MVP Kapp as the visitors mounted the pressure on the hosts.
RCB needed 51 runs off the final four overs, but a combination of some excellent bowling and clutch fielding meant the DC were always ahead in the game and in the end, won by 25 runs.
Earlier, contributions from Shafali Verma (50 runs off 31 balls), Alice Capsey (46 runs off 33 balls), Kapp (32 runs off 17 balls) and Jess Jonassen (36 not off 15 balls) helped DC reach a mammoth 194 for 5 in 20 overs.
There was drama as early as the opening ball of the match when RCB took an age to decide whether to review an lbw off Renuka Singh Thakur or not and eventually took it, much to the dismay of DC skipper Meg Lanning, who felt the allotted time had lapsed. RCB lost the review and in the same over, gave Verma a reprieve after she was dropped by Shreyanka Patil on four.
The DC opening pair were kept quiet for a large part of the Powerplay and lost Lanning (11 runs off 17 balls), caught by Georgia Wareham off Sophie Devine.
Verma and new batter Alice Capsey took the score to 84 for 1 after 10 overs with the latter seemingly having picked off from where she left in her fine innings of 75 runs in 53 balls in the tournament opener against MI, going after both the pacers and the spinners to put immense pressure on the hosts.
Verma got to her fifty in 30 deliveries but fell soon after reaching the landmark caught by Wareham again off Patil’s bowling. RCB removed Jemimah Rodrigues (0 runs off 4 balls) soon after, caught by Asha Sobhana off Nadine de Klerk to leave DC 111 for 3 in 13 overs.
De Klerk claimed the key scalp of Capsey, bowled (46 runs off 33 balls) a few overs later to give her side a chance to finish well in the end overs.
But Kapp (32 runs off 16 balls) and Jonassen (36 not out off 15 balls) pummeled the RCB bowling to all parts of the Chinnaswamy, putting on 48 runs in 22 balls and that stand proved to be the difference between victory and defeat in the end.
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