Meg Lanning’s Midas contact as cricket’s captain supreme has abandoned her in Mumbai as her Delhi Capitals staff got here up simply brief in an thrilling closing of the inaugural Women’s Premier League.
Despite Australia skipper Lanning once more top-scoring for her staff with 35, they stuttered to simply 9-131 on Sunday, earlier than the Mumbai Indians battled previous the goal on 3-134 for a hard-earned seven-wicket win with simply three balls remaining.
In entrance of Mumbai’s blue-clad military of followers of their dwelling Brabourne Stadium, it was an emotional night for India captain Harmanpreet Kaur, as she led her facet to victory over her previous Aussie rival to cap an enthralling first version of the game-changing Indian league for girls’s cricket.
And in a contest which has featured a bunch of standout performances by Australian gamers, there was some irony in the truth that the one staff that did not use a single Aussie within the match ended up profitable.
Not that Lanning did not as soon as once more step up. She ended up because the orange cap holder because the match’s prime scorer with a tally of 345 runs, and her shrewd captaincy nous saved Delhi within the hunt proper till the penultimate over.
Delivered by Lanning’s worldwide teammate Jess Jonassen with the match nonetheless within the stability, that nineteenth over was clocked decisively for 16 runs by Nat Sciver-Brunt and Amelia Kerr, leaving Mumbai to want simply 5 off the ultimate six balls.
The good English allrounder Sciver-Brunt, distinctive all through the match, then shortly completed the job with a intelligent paddled boundary that took her match-winning innings to 60 not out off 55 balls and sparked ecstatic scenes.
It wasn’t a contented match for Jonassen, although, who had additionally earlier been chargeable for a suicidal hit-and-run run-out of Lanning, taking a reckless single that was by no means on and which ended the captain’s promising 29-ball knock.
Ultimately, the Capitals fell foul of two distinctive performances from Mumbai’s two star worldwide allrounders.
West Indian Hayley Matthews bowled exceptionally to take 3-5 off 4 overs, which included 19 dot balls, whereas Sciver-Brunt then hit her third fifty of the match, to finish up as second within the run-scoring lists with 332.
It might have been even worse for the Capitals after they’d been lowered to 9-79 if it hadn’t been for a exceptional tenth wicket partnership between Shikha Pandey and Radha Yadav, who rattled off an unbeaten 52 between them off the final 4 overs.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
