After losing their first two Women’s Premier League 2024 (WPL 2024) matches against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals, Alyssa Healy’s UP Warriorz won their next two. On Friday, at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, the Warriorz trounced the Gujarat Giants by six wickets with 26 balls remaining.
UP Warriorz won the toss and chose to bowl first inviting Giants’ openers Laura Wolvaardt and Beth Mooney where Wolvaardt picked the second over of Anjali Sarvani to smash three back-to-back boundaries and the game was kicked off on a high note. After a silent third over, the fourth over saw Mooney’s first boundary.
Her second on the first ball of the second over which was followed by her disappointing and early dismissal on the second ball of the sixth over which amounted to 41 for the loss of 1 after the powerplay. Harleen Deol was next down the line to hit her first boundary in the seventh over with much power accumulated.
But by the time both the batters were struggling to score runs, Wolvaardt too had to depart midway in the tenth over at a score of 28 off 26 balls. Following the wicket, Phoebe Litchfield was fresh on the crease with a confident stroke with her bat bringing up two consecutive boundaries in the 11th over of the WPL 2024.
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Action ➡ Reaction#UPWvGG #GujaratGiants #Adani #BringItOn pic.twitter.com/6LLVvqGIMh
— Gujarat Giants (@Giant_Cricket) March 1, 2024
But the attack from UP Warriorz kept knocking one batter another, this time in the name of Deol only after Litchfield had got another four to add to the scoreboard. Ashleigh Gardner joined hands with Litchfield owning to the total in mind and started hitting boundaries, which Litchfield contemplated well. And Gardner was coming up with her first maximum in the 16th over and that was taken further with a couple of boundaries and another six in the 18th over.
READ MORE: WPL 2024: UP Warriorz (UPW) – SWOT Analysis
But this raised bar of run-rate suddenly saw a downfall in two back-to-back wickets in the 19th over in the names of Gardner and Litchfield. And this unfortunate fall of two big wickets resulted in a sheer lapse in the run-rate which could only bring up seven runs to freeze the scoreboard at 142 for the loss of 5.
UP Warrriorz openers Alyssa Healy and Kiran Navgire started the chase as usual on a positive note with Healy collecting a four in the first over. Navgire too got her first boundary in the second over. And there was Healy right on her boots to smash four boundaries in the third over. Navgire, from the other end, tried to provide some more assistance with another of her boundaries in the fifth over but unfortunately met her early dismissal in the same over by Tanuja Kanwar.
An unbeaten 60* off 33 with strokes like these 😎
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 1, 2024
Grace Harris finishes the job for the @UPWarriorz 💪
Scorecard 💻📱https://t.co/4LUKvUMAOB#TATAWPL | #UPWvGG pic.twitter.com/PI2Zuz212F
ALSO READ: WPL 2024: Gujarat Giants (GG) – SWOT Analysis
This sudden wicket saw another of the fall for Warriorz as Healy too got succumbed in the sixth over as Kathryn Bryce had the breakthrough. But despite this big wicket, Grace Harris pulled her collar down calmly and steered the scoreboard high with a couple of boundaries each in the sixth and seventh over followed by the first maximum.
Chamari Athapaththu too tried to provide support from the other end to push the run-rate but had to depart in the ninth over only after hitting two more fours. This brought UP Warriorz silent as the eleventh over bowled by Meghna Singh went maiden accompanied well with a wicket of Shweta Sehrawat.
Although there were two back-to-back backlash for Warriorz but Grace Harris kept her spirits high as she collected a boundary each in the 12th and 13th over followed by a maximum and Deepti Sharma’s two consecutive boundaries which was further taken forward to an over that comprised of two boundaries each for both the batters and the final winning boundary by Harris in the 16th over.
WPL 2024: UP Warriorz vs Gujarat Giants Brief Scores
Gujarat Giants 142/5 (Phoebe Litchfield 35; Ecclestone 3-20) lost to UP Warrior 143/4 in 15.4 overs (Harris 60*; Tanuka Kanwar 2-23) by 6 wickets.
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