Mumbai: After two back-to-back one-sided matches, the Women’s Premier League saw a thrilling first encounter, with UP Warriors thrashing Gujarat Giants by 3 wickets in the last over to make their tournament debut. Explosive innings of Grace Harris and Sophie Ecclestone in the last over and Kiran Navagire’s strong half-century helped UP to come out of defeat and win the match. On the other hand, Gujarat, who lost the first match of the tournament badly on Saturday, performed better in this match, but in the last over, the team made mistakes and lost the second match in a row.
These two teams clashed in the second match of the day on Sunday, March 5 at the DY Patil Stadium. The Gujarat team went into this match without their captain Beth Mooney, who was injured in the first match. Sneh Rana took charge of the team in his place. Apart from this, Gujarat also gave a chance to fast bowler Kim Garth. Understand how the whole match happened in just a few points.
UPW vs GG: The condition of the match was like this
Gujarat had decided to bat first and got off to a brisk start. He scored 45 runs after losing 2 wickets in the powerplay. After the dismissal of Sabbineni Meghna and Sophia Dunkley, 4 wickets fell for 76 runs till the 11th over.
Once again Gujarat’s innings was faltering but Harleen Deol and Ashley Gardner handled the innings. During this, Harleen also hit 4 consecutive fours but could not complete the half-century.
In the last over for Gujarat, Dayalan Hemlata added quick useful runs for the second consecutive match and took the team to a strong score of 169 for 6 in 20 overs.
In response, UP’s start was not very good. In the third over itself, the team lost the wickets of captain Alyssa Healy, Shweta Sehrawat and Tahlia McGrath. Kim Garth hunted all three. Till this time the score was only 20 runs.
From here, Kiran Navagire handled the innings and brought the team back into the contest by hitting big shots. Navagire completed his half-century in 40 balls. Then in the 12th and 13th overs, UP lost 3 wickets including Kiran, in which Garth took two consecutive wickets. She became the second bowler to take 5 wickets.
By the 16th over, UP’s score was 107 for 7 but Grace Harris and Sophie Ecclestone took charge and rained indiscriminate boundaries. Grace Harris was particularly aggressive. 19 runs were needed in the last over and Grace Harris won in 19.5 overs by hitting 24 runs including 2 sixes, 2 fours over Annabel Sutherland. UP scored a total of 175 runs.
Harris completed her half-century in 25 balls and returned unbeaten after scoring 59 runs in just 26 balls. He scored 7 fours and 3 sixes. Also shared a 70-run partnership in 25 balls with Eccleston (22 runs, 12 balls).