Meg Lanning evidently feels a bit self-conscious about sporting the orange cap that identifies the main run-scorer within the Women’s Premier League – however she simply cannot seemingly take it off.
Australia’s inspiring captain added one other unbeaten 21 runs to her tournament-leading tally in Delhi Capitals’ crushing 10-wicket victory over Gujarat Giants at Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium on Saturday.
Yet even Lanning was completely satisfied to play a really distant second fiddle to the virtuoso knock of her teenage opening companion, Shafali Verma.
After her bowlers had throttled the Giants, maintaining them to 9-105, Lanning may solely lean again and admire the thrilling batting on the different finish because the 19-year-old Verma raced to an unbeaten 76, blitzing 5 sixes and 10 fours in 28 balls of carnage.
It enabled the duo, essentially the most profitable opening pair within the event, to achieve 107 off simply 7.1 overs because the Capitals moved to second within the desk with six factors, the identical as leaders Mumbai Indians, who’ve the superior web run-rate.
Verma is now second within the run charts behind Lanning, who grinned after her earlier match that she felt “a bit silly” within the orange cap.
After their newest win, although, she’s nonetheless out in entrance with 206 runs at a mean of 68.67, with Verma on 179 at 59.67.
“Shafali certainly looked as if she was (trying to make sure she caught an early flight)” Lanning laughed.
“That was a pretty cool show to watch from the other end. I was just cheerleading from the non-strikers’ end. Some pretty clean hitting, some of the best I’ve seen, a pretty amazing performance.”
Typically, although, Lanning did not point out, till requested on the post-match presentation, her easy phrases of recommendation to the teen earlier than the tremendous present.
“I did say to her, ‘just keep it simple, stay still and hit the ball straight’ – and that’s exactly what she did,” admitted Lanning, who could come to rue that tip with Verma set to torment Australia’s bowlers for years to return.
On Saturday, it was Ash Gardner, the Giants’ Aussie allrounder who bought the remedy, with Verma hitting her for 4, 4 and 6 earlier than Lanning took a pair extra fours off the final two balls.
That sole over went for 23 runs in all and Gardner, the joint-highest abroad earner within the WPL, additionally bought a golden duck for the second time within the competitors, which isn’t what the Giants paid $558,000 for.
Gardner was certainly one of Marizanne Kapp’s 5 victims, the ever-competitive South African pipping Verma for participant of the match together with her 5-15.
For the Giants, who at one stage had been 6-33, Australian pair Kim Garth (32no off 37) and Georgia Wareham (22 off 25) not less than supplied a partial salvage job earlier than the Verma present introduced the home down.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
