‌WPL | Twitter reacts to Sutherland and Shafali dent Natalie’s all-round show as Delhi seal humdinger

Arijit Kundu

ByArijit Kundu,SportsCafe Editor

8
no photo

Delhi Capitals beat the Mumbai Indians by two wickets in their respective tournament opener. Natalie Sciver-Brunt’s 80* pushed the Mumbai side to a fighting 164-run total before Shafali Verma’s 43 and Niki Prasad’s 35 helped the Delhi side close out on a humdinger at the Kotambi Stadium.

Eyeing to set the tone after an underwhelming couple of finals in the Women’s Premier League’s histories, Meg Lanning opted to field first during the toss. The ploy worked in her favour when Shikha Pandey outsmarted the opposition openers in a 41-run powerplay. Harmanpreet Kaur assisted Natalie Sciver-Brunt in adding 46 runs in the next four overs. With the English all-rounder nearing a half-century, the skipper switched gears against Annabel Sutherland with three fours and a six in the eleventh over before concluding the 73-run stand by holing in the deep. Right after, Amelia Kerr assisted the English Women in a 24-run-stand before the side fell like nine pins in the slog-overs phase. Thankfully, Natalie remained unbridled at 80, propelling the scoreboard to 164 runs.

Unlike their counterparts, the Capitals got off to a blistering start with 60 runs coming off the powerplay, highlighted by a 22-run second over where Shafali Verma teed off Saika Ishaque. However, the openers departed in the space of a ball around the powerplay, followed by Jemimah Rodrigues and Annabel Sutherland departing on back-to-back overs with the score 83/4 in ten overs. At times of adversity, Alice Capsey and Niki Prasad added 33 runs together, making way for a 10-ball 21-run cameo from Sarah Bryce to curtail the equation down to 21 required off the last two overs. This is when unprecedented drama kicked off with a questionable runout followed by a six off Radha Yadav in the 19th over trimming it down to ten needed off the final over. Seven runs came halfway through the over before Niki was dismissed for 35, needing a couple off the last ball. Subsequently, Arundhati Reddy drove a fuller one past cover to run hard and complete a double.

 What a thriller





Crazy

Tension

Niki

Nerve wrecking

Thriller

Scenes

One six

Great

Beat

Thriller

 

laught0
astonishment0
sadness0
heart0
like0
dislike0

Comments

Sign up or log in to your account to leave comments and reactions

0 Comments