Harmanpreet Kaur finally managed to get one over Australia’s Meg Lanning as Mumbai Indians (MI) beat Delhi Capitals (DC) by seven wickets with three balls to spare in the inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 final. Nat Sciver-Brunt played a phenomenal knock under pressure at Brabourne Stadium to guide MI to glory.
MI's run chase got off to a decent start with Hayley Matthews hitting two fours in the first over. Yastika Bhatia hit a four off the second ball she faced but got dismissed by Radha Yadav in an attempt to hit the ball over deep mid-wicket. Matthews got out in the powerplay overs as well. Jess Jonassen played it towards Arundhati Reddy who took a low catch at mid-on. At the end of powerplay overs, MI were 27/2.
Harmanpreet took her time to settle whereas Nat Sciver-Brunt struggled to rotate the strike. At halfway stage, they were 51/2 as Lanning tightened the screws. In the 12th over, Harmanpreet and Nat hit Alice Capsey for one four each. The run rate increased and Nat tried to accelerate. In the 17th over, the partnership was broken with the run out of Harmanpreet. Once again, it was a run out that ended her innings as the Mumbai crowd was silenced. She scored 37 runs from 39 balls including five fours.
Despite the wicket, Brunt kept the run chase alive with two boundaries off Capsey. Pandey bowled a brilliant last over conceding just five runs making the equation 21 off 12 balls. In the penultimate over, Jonassen took a beating. First, Nat hit her for a boundary and got to her half-century from 52 deliveries. Then Melie Kerr hit two consecutive fours to make the equation five runs from last over. Sciver-Brunt finished off the run chase with a boundary as MI got over the line with three balls to spare.
Earlier, Lanning won the toss and opted to bat first. In the second over, Shafali Verma took on Issy Wong and hit her for a six and a four. But Shafali could not hit a full toss out of the mark and got caught by Melie Kerr. She scored 11 off 4 balls. In the same over, Wong got Capsey out for a two-ball duck. In the third over, Lanning and Rodrigues got boundaries. In the fifth over, Rodrigues got out to Wong as Matthews took a sharp catch. Rodrigues scored just nine runs from eight balls. After powerplay overs, DC were 38/3.
Despite wickets falling at the other end, Lanning continued to hit boundaries. At halfway stage, DC were 68/3. Just when it looked like DC were recovering, Kapp became Kerr's first victim. The South Africa batter scored 18 runs from 21 deliveries. In the next over, DC lost the big wicket of Lanning. After a mix-up with Jonassen, Lanning was caught short of the crease. She scored 35 off 29 balls including five fours. In the next over, Arundhati Reddy got dismissed by Kerr for a five-ball duck. Runs did not come easy and Matthews capitalised on the dot ball pressure to dismiss Jonassen who scored just two runs from 11 balls. In her last over, Matthews got the wickets of Minnu Mani and Taniya Bhatia. She finished with five runs from her quota of four overs including two maiden overs.
With 79/9 after 16 overs, DC feared getting all out but Pandey and Yadav launched a counter-attack. In the penultimate over, Pandey took on Wong and hit her for a six followed by two fours. 20 runs came off the penultimate over. In the final over, Yadav finished the innings with consecutive sixes. The two batters shared an unbeaten 52-run stand from just four overs. This is the highest 10th wicket partnership in women's T20s across franchise cricket, domestic cricket and T20Is.
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