Delhi Capitals sealed a five-wicket win in the last match of the league stage of the Women’s Premier League T20 tournament on the basis of Alice Capsey’s all-round performance. Delhi Capitals achieved the target by losing five wickets with 13 balls to stop UP Warriors at 138 for six. The team had to win in 19.4 overs to reach the final but achieved the target in 17.5 overs.
After this win, Delhi Capitals moved to the top of the table with 12 points from six wins in eight matches, while Mumbai Indians remained second despite having the same number of points due to poor net run rate. UP Warriors were sure to finish third before this match. As per the tournament rules, the top team in the league stage will directly qualify for the final while the second and third placed teams will play an eliminator match.
‘Player of the match’ Capsey, after taking three wickets for 26 runs in four overs, played a key role in the innings of 34 runs in 31 balls for the team to reach the final. Captain Lanning played an aggressive inning of 39 runs in 23 balls for Delhi. While Marijan Kapp, who hit the winning four, remained unbeaten on 34 off 31 balls. Chasing the target, Lanning and Shefali Verma (21 runs in 16 balls) shared a 56-run partnership in 31 balls for the first wicket to give Delhi Capitals a quick start once again.
Lanning showed his intent by hitting three fours and a six in Shabnim Ismail’s first over. From the other end, Shefali also opened her account by hitting a boundary against S Yashashree. She managed to hit the first two balls of the fifth over for fours but was caught by Sophie Eccleston in an attempt to play another big shot. Lanning also hit a six against Deepti, which made the team’s score 67 for one in the powerplay.
Ismail, who went for 18 runs in the opening over, returned to bowl in the seventh over and got the Warriors back in the match by taking the wicket of Lanning after Jemimah Rodrigues. She trapped Jemima (three) leg before on the first ball of the over while Lanning was caught by Simran Sheikh in an attempt to hit a six. Lanning hit five fours and two sixes in his aggressive innings. Despite the fall of two wickets in the same over, Capsy did not allow the required run-rate to increase by hitting three fours in the ninth over against Sophie Eccleston and a six in the 10th over against Parshvi Chopra.
After this, Capsy and Marijan Kapp insisted on running and stealing runs while batting carefully. Kaap opened his hand against Deepti by hitting a six in the 16th over. Eccleston broke his 60-run fifth-wicket partnership with Kapp in the 17th over when he was stumped, but it was too late. Earlier, on the basis of Tahlia McGrath’s innings of 58 runs in 32 balls, UP Warriors made a comeback in the last over and scored 138 runs for six wickets.
McGrath hit eight fours and two sixes in his innings as the team scored 33 runs in the last two overs to post a challenging total. Apart from Capsy for Delhi Capitals, Radha got two and Jess Johnson got one success. After being invited to bat, UP Warriors captain Alyssa Healy hit Kaap’s very first ball for a four, while Shweta Sehrawat took Shikha Pandey’s consecutive balls across the boundary line in the second over.
Shweta then hit fours against Kapp and Johnson but was dismissed by Radha on the first ball of the fifth over. Shweta scored 19 runs in 12 balls. After this, Simran, who came to the crease, was seen struggling to score runs. Meanwhile, Healy tried to increase the run rate by hitting a six against Radha in the eighth over and a four against Shikha in the ninth over. Alissa, however, was stumped in a similar attempt by Capsy.
He scored 36 runs in 34 balls. Radha showed the path of pavilion to Simran (11 runs in 23 balls) in the 12th over, while in the 15th over, Kiran Navagire (2 runs in three balls) was stumped by Tania. Meanwhile, in the 14th over, Tahlia McGrath, playing her 100th T20, hit three fours in Arundhati Reddy’s over. McGrath hit two consecutive fours against Radha to complete his team’s hundred in the 17th over. In the next over, Deepti Sharma (three runs in eight balls) and Sophie Eccleston (0) were stumped by Capsy and only one run came from this over.
In the midst of a fall of wickets from one end, McGrath hit the last two balls of Jonassen for a six and a four in the 19th over. In the next over, he hit a four and a six off consecutive balls against Capsy, bringing up his half-century in 30 balls and then hitting a four off the last ball of the innings to take the score to 138.
