The Delhi Capitals, last year’s runners-up, have had an excellent start to the WPL 2024 season. The Meg Lanning-led side has won two games in a row, moving to the brink of the points table. Meanwhile, the Royals have dropped a spot following a dismal performance from their bowling and middle order.
The Delhi Capitals defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 25 runs in their Women’s Premier League encounter in Bengaluru on Thursday, despite Smriti Mandhana’s stunning batting performance.
RCB won the toss and they decided to bowl first bringing Shafali Verma and Meg Lanning into attack as the in-form Verma started in style collecting her first boundary in the first over followed by her first maximum in the second over. Lanning too joined hands with her to gift her first boundary of the match-up in the third over but the fourth over despite a balanced start could only give a single.
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Although the fifth over started with a four from Lanning but she had to depart much early in the fifth over owing to the powerplay, Verma led her knock well releasing the pressure of an early wicket with a boundary and a six in the sixth over. Capsey too contemplated Verma well with her brilliantly stroke of two consecutive boundaries.
And Capsey was on fire in the tenth over hitting a six on the first ball and then a four later which was followed by another six in the 11th over. Verma was well on her terms with the bat but her long-standing feud with the RCB bowlers could only last till her fifty in the 12th over after hitting two back-to-back maximums.
New down Jemimah Rodrigues too met her disappointing dismissal in the 13th over at a mere duck. The 14th and 15th over saw some ups and downs for Delhi Capitals as Marizanne Kapp hit her first maximum of the game which was followed by well-set Capsey as Nadine de Klerk got the breakthrough. But this could barely keep Kapp’s aggression with her bat as she collected two more boundaries and a couple of sixes in the 16th and 17th over.
The Smriti storm 🌪️ has arrived in Bengaluru 🤩
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) February 29, 2024
FIFTY 🆙 for the opening wicket and #RCB are 52/0 after 6 overs.
Live 💻📱https://t.co/mKFymL1O3h#TATAWPL | #RCBvDC pic.twitter.com/TDxLG33cXF
Jess Jonassen also came in and joined bats with Kapp to surge the scoreboard high in the sky with her three boundaries accompanied by her first maximum in the 18th over but before that could make it much bigger Kapp had to depart midway through to give her wicket away to Sophie Devine in the 19th over. But the duo of Arundhati Reddy and Jonassen gifted their team a gigantic total of 194, till highest in the season, with two boundaries from the former and a boundary and a six from the latter.
Smriti Mandhana kicked the chase off on a valiant note with two boundaries in the first over followed by her first maximum and another boundary in the second over. The later over were kept getting two boundaries each in the third and fourth which were further taken forward by the second six of the chase in the fifth over.
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This was contemplated well by Devine in the sixth over as she summed the powerplay with a boundary. The seventh over was a somewhat silent one but that was covered majestically with Devine’s two back-to-back sixes in the eighth over before finally getting departed at 23 in the ninth over as Arundhati Reddy got the much-needed breakthrough for her team.
Although Mandhana tried to carry the momentum forward with her valiant stroke of a boundary in the tenth and 11th over of the thrilling game of WPL 2024 which saw Sabbhineni Meghana’s superb smash in the sky to collect her first massive runs in the name of a six. And the match turning over thus finally arrived as Kapp turned things around her side dismissing Mandhana only after she could hit another ten runs in the name of a boundary and a six in the twelfth over.
The @DelhiCapitals inch closer to victory here in Bengaluru! 🙌
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) February 29, 2024
Was this dismissal the turning point of the game 🤔#TATAWPL | #RCBvDC pic.twitter.com/S92BVrO4QX
Richa Ghosh was next new in the chase and started with some timely singles to get the scoreboard moving before going leaps ahead for two consecutive maximums in the fifteenth over before finally getting succumbed to Marizanne Kapp’s delivery in the 16th over followed by another wicket of Georgia Wareham in the 17th over.
Although Meghana showed some valour to hit two back-to-back boundaries in the 19th over, but the results were already out for the match as Meghana and Nadine de Klerk laid their wickets away in the same over. And the last over could only see a couple of singles mingled with three final wickets of Sophie Molineux, Simran Bahadur and Asha Sobhana to conclude the total at 169 for the loss of 9.
WPL 2024: Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Delhi Capitals Brief Scores
Delhi Capitals 194/5 in 20 overs (Shafali Verma 50, Alice Capsey 46; Sophie Devine 2-33, Nadine de Klerk 2-35) beat Royal Challengers Bangalore 169/9 in 20 overs (Smriti Mandhana 74, S Meghana 36; Jess Jonassen 3-21, Marizanne Kapp 2-35) by 25 runs.
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