Delhi Capitals secure final berth in WPL

The Delhi Capitals ensured that they would have a place in the final of the Tata Women’s Premier League (WPL) after they won two of their last three pool games during the final week of pool stage action to finish top of the log.

The Mumbai Indians finished second and the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) third to seal their spots in the final eliminator, which will be battled out at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Friday night.

The winner of that match will go on to face the Capitals in the final at the same ground on Sunday night to see who will be crowned champions of the 2024 WPL.

The Capitals started their week with a surprising defeat, their second of the competition, going down by one run to the UP Warriorz.

The Warriorz scored an underwhelming 138/8 batting first, with Deepti Sharma top scoring with 59, and 60 from the bat of Meg Lanning at the top of the order put the Capitals on course for a win.

But with them needing just 14 runs to win off the last two overs and having six wickets in hand the Capitals spectacularly imploded.

Sharma, 4/19, returned to bowl the penultimate over and having picked up the crucial wicket of Lanning off the last ball of her third over, which was the 14th of the innings, she proceeded to pick up two more wickets to seal a hattrick, while she then got a fourth and third of the over a few balls later.

Defending 10 off the final over Grace Harris was hit for a six and a two at the start to leave the Capitals needing two to win off four balls, but they then lost three straight wickets, two to Harris and a run out to fall agonisingly short, making for an unbelievable finish to the match.

The Capitals were involved in another thriller in their second game of the week, but this time ended up as the one run winners over RCB.

The Capitals batted first and scored 181/5, with Jemimah Rodrigues (58) and Alice Capsey (48) the key contributors, while Shreyanka Patil picked up 4/26 in her four overs.

Ellyse Perry (49) and Sophie Molineux (33) then batted well to set the platform for RCB, but after Richa Ghosh (51) had done all the hard work down the back end leaving them needing one run to win off the last ball with her facing, she was run out off the final delivery as they just missed out.

The Capitals final game of the week was much less nerve jangling as they thumped the Gujarat Giants by seven wickets.

The Giants scored a below par 126/9 batting first with Bharti Fulmali (42) top scoring, and Marizanne Kapp, 2/17, Minnu Mani, 2/9, and Shikha Pandey, 2/23, the key wicket takers.

Shafali Verma was then the star with the bat cracking 71 off 37 balls (7x4, 5x6) and was backed up by Rodrigues (38no) as they powered home at the start of the 14th over.

Mumbai also won an exhilarating encounter in the week, beating the Giants by seven wickets with just one ball remaining in the high scoring encounter.

The Giants batted first and managed a strong 190/7, thanks mainly to Dayalan Hemalatha (74) and Beth Mooney (66), but they were outclassed by Harmanpreet Kaur’s sublime unbeaten 95 off 48 balls (10x4, 5x6) as she took her side home in style.

In Mumbai’s other match they slumped to a seven-wicket defeat to RCB, with Perry the star of the show as she claimed brilliant figures of 6/15 off her four overs to restrict Mumbai to 113 batting first and then top scored for her team with an unbeaten 40 to take them home with five overs to spare.

The other game to take place in the week saw the Giants beat the Warriorz by eight runs in a close encounter.

The Giants scored a par 152/8 batting first thanks to openers Mooney (74no) and Laura Wolvaardt (43) setting the platform, before the Warriorz responded with 144/5, with Sharma (88no) and Poonam Khemnar (36no) not scoring at a quick enough rate in the end.