With a fine display of the asphyxiating properties of a good spin attack, Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Delhi Capitals by eight wickets to lift its maiden Women’s Premier League title at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Sunday.
Jonathan Batty, Meg Lanning, and batting first—time and again, this combination has proved futile in league finals in the Women’s Big Bash League and even in last year’s WPL final which DC lost to the Mumbai Indians. Lanning and Shafali Verma looked like they were batting on two different wickets.
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Where Shafali was striking the ball clean, Lanning looked tentative right from the third ball of the innings, where miscommunication nearly saw her lose her wicket. With Shafali taking charge, DC got to 61 in the PowerPlay, the joint-best tally in the first six overs this season. However, Sophie Molineux was the out-of-syllabus question that left the league leader in tatters.
She removed Shafali Verma (holed out to Georgia Wareham at deep midwicket), Jemimah Rodrigues (who got on one knee to sweep missing the ball completely as it hit the stumps) and Alice Capsey (a brain fade that saw her trying to scoop the ball only to lose her stumps) in the span of four balls. Seeing the purchase Molineux got from the wicket, Smriti stuck to spin, bringing her death overs combo of Shreyanka Patil and Asha Sobhana into play.
Richa Ghosh and Ellyse Perry played a key role in guiding RCB home. | Photo Credit: Shiva Kumar Pushpakar/The Hindu
As she did a week ago, Shreyanka once got Lanning trapped leg before yet again, with the ball headed straight for her middle stump. From there on, DC slipped deeper into the quicksand, finally folding for 113 with nine balls left unfaced, its lower order’s batting hiccups proving to be its Achilles’ heel yet again.
Smriti’s ploy to strangulate with spin was spot on. RCB’s four tweakers gave away only 62 runs, bowling 35 dot balls between them. What particularly hurt DC was the period between the 7th and the 14th over (7.4 overs to be precise) which saw no boundaries.
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Lanning with her poker face on did not let RCB have it easy. Sophie Devine and Smriti got off to a confident start, putting up 49 runs before Shikha Pandey got Devine in the ninth over. Lanning bowled out her premiere pace options – Marizanne Kapp and Shikha – within the first 12 overs, potentially looking for their wicket-taking form to come through. The pair did well to keep things tight bowling 26 dot balls in total and giving away 33 runs.
Jess Jonassen was introduced only in the 14th over, with RCB needing 42 off as many deliveries. Smriti’s off-spin weakness got the better of her as Minnu Mani sent her back. If the target wasn’t so low, this fielding effort would have been a masterclass in how to defend with Test intensity in a T20 game by Lanning and Co. but 113 was far too less even for the genius of the world’s most decorated leader. In what tied the win up with a perfect bow, Richa – who a week ago was reduced to tears when she couldn’t see out a win against the same opponent – hit the winning runs.
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