Navi Mumbai, March 20 () After thrashing Mumbai Indians by nine wickets in the Women’s Premier League (WPL), Delhi Capitals skipper Meg Lanning said she was pleased with her team dishing out great performances with bat and ball in the business end of the tournament.
On a slow pitch which had some help for the fast bowlers, Marizanne Kapp, Shikha Pandey and Jess Jonassen picked two wickets each while Jemimah Rodrigues had two outstanding catches to her name in keeping Mumbai to a below-par 109/8.
In reply, powerful 30s from Meg Lanning, Shafali Verma and Alice Capsey helped Delhi complete the chase in just nine overs. Finishing the chase off early has propelled Delhi to now be top of the points table and go past Mumbai in terms of net run rate.
“Just great we could win tonight, looking forward to continuing that tomorrow. Tonight, we put together a great performance with bat and ball. When you get to the business end of the tournament, you need to put together both and we did that,” she said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
Meg had some special praise for England all-rounder Alice Capsey, who hit 38 not out off just 17 balls, including five monstrous sixes off spinners Hayley Matthews and Saika Ishaque, as well as for fast-bowling all-rounder Arundhati Reddy, who took 1-10 in her three overs.
“Great game, hard to fault much. Set it up really nicely with the ball, Capsey was superb, Aru Reddy was excellent, and she’s been building up all tournament. She’s very talented, always willing to learn and go out there and play well. Even when she wasn’t playing or bowling, she was really engaged. To see her play well is really nice.”
Mumbai Indians captain Harmanpreet Kaur rued her batters’ inability to get more runs and felt that this defeat will keep the players grounded ahead of facing Royal Challengers Bangalore in their last league match on Tuesday, which will happen before Delhi take on UP Warriorz.
“We were 45 runs short but with the amount of bowling we have, we were looking for early breakthroughs. Dew was there, and we didn’t bowl to our plans, they batted really well. We definitely have to bat well to win, we need to sit and discuss what we’ve not done well in the last couple of games. We’ve got good players, I’m happy this has happened to us, at least we won’t be overconfident.”
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