Delhi Capitals. (Photo Source: Twitter/WPL)
The 18th match of the inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 saw Mumbai Indians take on Delhi Capitals at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai on Monday, March 20. Harmanpreet Kaur-led MI looked to register a win after losing their previous game to UP Warriorz.
Delhi Capitals came into the contest with a mission as they handed MI their second loss of the season. Despite having qualified for the tournament playoffs, many questions will be raised in the MI camp after back-to-back defeats. Following DC’s phenomenal victory, let us look at the talking points and who said what from the game.
The Marizanne Kapp show:
As MI batted first, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side looked to notch up a big target on the board and were keen on improving from their last game. However, Marizanne Kapp had different ideas as she came through for DC again, picking up two wickets in four overs and conceding just 13 runs
Back-to-back losses for MI
Despite securing the playoff qualification, MI have been handed their second loss in the tournament. Questions will definitely be asked of Harmanpreet Kaur and the think tank, and if there are any concerns heading into a crucial stage of the competition, the side will look to eliminate them at the earliest.
All-round excellence from Delhi:
After stopping MI for a below-par score of 109, Delhi Capitals followed it up with an exceptional batting display. Meg Lanning’s side just lost one wicket as they chased the target with ease. Skipper Lanning scored an unbeaten 32, Shafali Verma scored 33, and Alice Capsey scored an unbeaten knock of 38 runs to propel her side to victory.
Winning skipper Meg Lanning said:
It was a great game, hard to fault much. We got off well with the bowl, Kapp got us to a great start again and to chase down like that was brilliant. (On Kapp) She’s very talented, always eager to play well and to see her perform so well, very pleased for her. I think the bowler’s did it for us tonight, to restrict them to about 100 was great. (On Orange Cap) I was quite happy with the blue, not too worried about things like this. Just want a repeat performance like this, bat well, bowl well and hopefully get another win.
Losing skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said:
I think we were 40-50 runs short. We were looking for early breakthroughs but they batted very well. Dew was there but we didn’t bowl to our plans, we bowled really short today. Well, we surely have to bat well now. We do have good players but sometimes things like this can happen. We won’t get overconfident now and stick to our basics.
Player of the Match Marizanne Kapp said:
To be honest, the whole bowling group deserves this award. Everyone bowled well today. On this wicket, everytime we win the toss I want to bowl first because the ball does quite a bit. Just happy with the win and the performance. I think the more I play, the more I read the wicket and my bowling gets better. The catches this team has been taking has been amazing. Been a while since I’ve seen a performance like this, and the team has been working really hard and well together.
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