WPL 2024, Match 17: Delhi Capitals Women vs. Royal Challengers Bangalore Women – Who Said What?

The Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 knockout stages are accessible to Delhi Capitals Women (DC-W) following their stunning one-run victory over Royal Challengers Bangalore Women (RCB-W) in Match 17 on Sunday, March 10 at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Delhi, who chose to bat first, amassed a whopping 181/5 in the 20 overs that they were given.

RCB, in response, was eerily close to victory but ultimately finished one run short, scoring 180/7 in their 20 overs. In the second over alone, they lost their captain, Smriti Mandhana (5 off 7), which gave their chase a terrible start. But with an 80-run partnership off 57 balls for the second wicket, Ellyse Perry (49 off 32) and Sophie Molineux steadied the batting.

Richa Ghosh’s incredible half-century (51 off 29) put RCB on the edge of victory, but contributions from Sophie Devine (26 off 16) and Georgia Wareham (12 off 6) kept them in the game. Nevertheless, she was unable to score two runs off the final ball and was part of a regrettable runout, which led to their devastating defeat.

Delhi made the decision to bat first and got off to a strong start earlier in the day as openers Shafali Verma (23 off 18) and Meg Lanning (29 off 26) put up 54 runs for the first wicket off 38 balls. Following a strong start for DC, RCB produced an incredible comeback as Shreyanka Patil caught Lanning and Asha Shobhana removed Verma.

There was still no relief for the RCB bowlers when they were dismissed, as Jemimah Rodrigues (58 off 36) and Alice Capsey (48 off 32) carried on the assault, engaging in a mammoth 97-run partnership off 62 balls. With a score of 4/26 in four overs, Shreyanka Patil broke their stand by cleaning both of their stumps.

Following the match, the two captains and the Player of the Match said the following:

The losing captain, Smriti Mandhana, Royal Challengers Bangalore, said:

Tough loss to take. The way we were batting, the way Richa was going, brilliant innings and Shreyanka’s last over was brilliant to watch. [on Shreyanka] She had a niggle, not that she was not dropped, a player of her quality there was no way of dropping. Really happy for her, especially the last over, showed a lot of character. [on having so many opening partners this season] Does not change the way I want to bat for sure. Would have loved to play today and maybe better. Does not change my mindset.

Last 10 years of international cricket, had a few partners. We have seen a  lot of Richa in WPL and international cricket, Perry was going well, unfortunately she got run out. The game could have gone anywhere in the last ball and good on Delhi to keep their nerve and win. One run does not make us a bad team. Good effort with the shorter boundary to restrict them to 180. We really believed that we could chase this down. Would tell the girls to keep their heads high and come back stronger the day after.

Winning Captain, Meg Lanning, Delhi Capitals, said:

That’s way too stressful. Thankfully tonight we are on the right side. I’m a lot calmer on the outside than on the inside. Even the couple of ones we lost, did not nail the big moments but tonight we did and were happy with the win. We laid a really good platform, we felt the score at the halfway mark was good. If we bowled well and took our chances, we knew we could win. Our bowlers did a great job. conditions and matchups and that’s what we felt was best for the game. When you get set batters here, it’s tough to stop them.

Player of the Match, Jemimah Rodrigues, Delhi Capitals, said:

Good, we have two days to recover. We have played three last-ball games and it was such a blessing this went in our favor. Keep at it and stick at it during the timeouts. Taking it one ball and not thinking too much helped us. After losing against UP, I knew for some reason, this was going to help us. For next time when we were playing a semi it was going to help us – learning from our mistakes.

The pitch tonight was slower and lower, yesterday also was the same pitch. I decided that even if I look ugly I had to get runs, getting player of the match is fine but today is a total team effort. Shikha bowled that 16th over against the two best hitters in the world, Capsey and me with that partnership. JJ with that last over, Meg as well, so a total team effort. [on Richa] I feel for her, although I’m happy we won. I told her, this will help you – maybe she could hit the winning runs in the World Cup final and help us lift the trophy.