WPL 2024: Dominant Performances by Mandhana and Perry Lead RCB to Victory in Bengaluru
UP Warriorz 175 for 8 (Healy 55, Asha 2-29, Molineux 2-29) lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore 198 for 3 (Mandhana 80, Perry 58, Ecclestone 1-22) by a margin of 23 runs.
With glass crashing and screaming RCB supporters echoing in her ears, Ellyse Perry‘s face went from a grimace to a grin. She must have been grinning because she had just smashed the windshield of a sponsor’s car with her fourth six of a fantastic innings that helped her team defeat UP Warriorz and score a massive total.
With a magnificent 80 off 50 deliveries, Smriti Mandhana’s second half-century in three games, had already roughed up the Warriorz bowlers. Perry then dealt the final blow with a 37-ball 58, the two sharing a 95-run stand for the second wicket to set Warriorz a lofty win mark of 199.
In their final home game in Bengaluru before the tournament shifts to Delhi, RCB hung on to end a two-game losing streak, despite a determined 55 off 38 balls by Alyssa Healy giving Warriorz hope. Perry and her team may now relax.
MANDHANA SHOW
S In addition to Mandhana’s disciplined scoring, Meghana went up to open ahead of Sophie Devine and blasted to 28 off 21 balls with five fours. By the end of the powerplay, Meghana had skyed Anjali Sarvani to extra cover, where Chamari Athapaththu was waiting for a simple catch, and the RCB were up 57 for 1. Perry arrived as she left, leaving Devine in the dugout and the RCB to stick with their hitting order.
When Mandhana lofted Sophie Ecclestone down the ground, she should have been out for 28, but Athapaththu appeared to want the ground to suck her up after she overran a simple catch. She had to reach upwards to hang on after running in from a distance.
In order to reach 48, Mandhana advanced down the field and struck a 75-meter six off a Rajeshwari Gayakwad delivery over extra cover. She then reached her half-century in 34 balls by swiping Grace Harris through midwicket for a single. Mandhana scored three boundaries in an Athapaththu over, followed by three more from Sarvani and one from Perry, leaving UP Warriorz looking helpless. Perry then intervened with a maximum off Harris over wide long-on.
PERRY WENT BIG
Mandhana and Perry had caused significant damage by the time she and Perry holed out to deep midwicket off Deepti Sharma in the 17th over, with RCB cruising at 146 for 2. Gayakwad gave up 21 runs in the eighteenth over, mostly as a result of Perry hitting back-to-back sixes and Richa Ghosh, who batted at number four, hitting another maximum. With a charge at Deepti and a smash of the ball back over the bowler’s head for four, Perry achieved her fifty from 34 balls.
The highlight, though, was her heave over wide long-on two balls later off Deepti, which left Warriorz with a mountain to climb and the ball to be recovered from a mound of glass on the back seat of the promotional car. In the last over, Perry was bowled out by Poonam Khemnar at deep midwicket after Ecclestone delivered a delivery. RCB finished barely short of 200 runs when Ghosh threaded the last ball of the innings through backward point for four.
WARRIORZ SHOWED SPIRIT
Renuka Singh gave Warriorz a maiden to start, but the team didn’t let up. Healy struck two sixes off Devine in the second over, and Renuka gave up an astonishing 24 off the next. At the end of the powerplay, Warriorz were just one run behind where RCB had been at the same time in their innings, despite Devine having Kiran Navgire caught by Georgia Wareham, who was sprinting back from mid-on in the fifth over.
Healy was taken aback when RCB dismissed Athapaththu on review after she had welcomed leg-spinner Wareham’s opening ball with a slog stroke for six. “No way,” said a wide-eyed Healy when ball-tracking revealed the ball pitching in on leg stump and hitting middle stump halfway up, which was not the predicted trajectory of a traditional leg-spinner.
Arriving at the crease to join Healy, Harris was smiling and at ease. However, Devine grabbed her second wicket with a slower length ball, which Harris attempted to scoop. Instead, Ghosh, anticipating her shot, started to move to her left and leaped high to make a superb catch.
Unfazed, Healy hit three straight fours off Wareham’s subsequent over. However, in the first encounter between these teams in 2024, Asha Sobhana, who had taken five wickets as RCB narrowly won by two runs, struck with her third delivery of the game to dismiss Shweta Sehrawat for a cheap price. Healy reached her fifty runs in 34 balls after hitting four balls through midwicket off Asha. However, she was out the next ball after Sophie Molineux reverse-swept her to the boundary, being stumped by Ghosh.
ASHA CONTINUES TO DELIVER FOR RCB
Deepti and Khemnar produced stylish cameos in a 41-run partnership for the sixth wicket, but Warriorz weren’t done fighting as they needed 52 runs off the final four overs. In their individual runs of 33 and 31, both players hit four fours and a six. However, Deepti came down the pitch to Asha and skewed the ball straight up in an attempt to bring the target closer. Both Asha and Ekta Bisht, who was making her 38-year-old WPL debut, tried for the catch, but Asha held on despite becoming tangled up with her teammate and falling to the ground.
Ecclestone was quickly removed by Wareham, but Khemnar persisted, finishing the over with a four and a six. However, the task proved too great when 29 were needed to finish the last. Molineux concluded with two wickets apiece, Asha, Wareham, and Devine. Molineux bowled Khemnar with the last delivery of the match.
