New Delhi: Languishing at the bottom of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) table, Delhi Capitals needed a win to keep them in contention for the playoffs. On Tuesday night at the Kotambi Stadium, Vadodara, Jemimah Rodrigues and Lizelle Lee propelled their team to a much-needed seven-wicket win against Mumbai Indians.
Openers Lee (46) and Shafali Verma (29), their most consistent batters this season, clicked yet again. The duo maximised the Powerplay phase, racing to 57/0 and laying the platform, ensuring Mumbai Indians were put under pressure early after they had managed only 154/5.
Left-arm spinner Vaishnavi Sharma – she was named the replacement for the injured G Kamalini – marked her WPL debut with a wicket in the first over, dismissing Shafali, bowling her around the legs.
A contentious third umpire decision saw Lee stumped for 46, reducing DC to 84/2. Her dismissal meant the boundaries dried up. From then on, it was up to Laura Wolvaardt and Jemimah Rodrigues to rebuild the innings, but another unlucky dismissal for DC followed with Wolvaardt run out for 17 after backing too far. Nat Sciver-Brunt (0/42), the bowler, went low and deflected the hit on to the stumps, leaving the South Africa player stranded.
Captain Rodrigues (51*) though didn’t squander the opportunity, taking her team home. She paced her innings well and stepped up towards the end, taking on Sciver-Brunt and Hayley Matthews (0/19). She combined with Marizanne Kapp (10*) to stitch an unbeaten 37-run partnership to chase down the target with an over to spare.
The pitch at Vadodara, unlike the one at DY Patil Stadium, was true to form, staying low and slow for the most part with spinners and back-of-a-length pacers getting the most off the pitch.
In what was yet another opening pair for Mumbai Indians, with Kamalini ruled out for the rest of the season, Hayley Matthews (12) and S Sajana (9) did not click either.
Nandni Sharma (1/36) began the proceedings by dismissing Sajana. Matthews, very reliable in previous seasons, has not clicked in this edition so far and returned to the pavilion early after Kapp’s wobble-seam delivery crashed into middle-stump.
With the top-order failing, Harmanpreet Kaur (41) and Sciver-Brunt (65*) stepped up again. The duo stitched a 78-run partnership to stabilise things and Sciver-Brunt held the innings together.
Kapp bowled a miserly spell, finishing with 4-0-8-1, but it was left-arm spinner Shree Charani (3/33) who cleaned up the lower order, ensuring that MI, who were looking for more, ended with a below par total.
With this win, DC (4 pts) climbed to fourth in the points table with MI (4) second. RCB (10) have already qualified for the playoffs, UPW (4) are third and GG (4) are last.
