The Women's Premier League (WPL 2024) championship match took place in Delhi's Arun Jaitley Stadium on March 17, 2024. Meg Lanning's Delhi Capitals (DC) hosted Smriti Mandhana's Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the championship match.
In her homeground Feroz Shah Kotla ground, Meg Lanning won the toss and decided to bat first. DC got off to a good start thanks to Shafali Verma and Lanning, who put up 64 runs for the first wicket in 7.1 overs. Shafali scored 44 in just 27 balls, hitting two fours and three sixes, demonstrating her superb touch.
Lanning scored 23 with three fours. But Smriti Mandhana did a wonderful job of using her spinners, as Sophie Molineux, Asha Shobana, and Shreyanka Patil shook the Delhi Capitals middle order.
To begin the collapse, Molineux dismissed Alice Capsey (0), Jemimah Rodrigues (0), and Verma (44), all in four balls, in the same over.
Shreyanka then took the wicket of Lanning and added three more scalps of Minnu Mani (5), Arundhati Reddy, and Taniya Bhatia. Asha Sobhana accounted for wickets of Marizanne Kapp and Jess Jonassen as DC only posted 113 on the board in 18.3 overs.
Shreyanka Patil shined with 4/12, while Molineux took 3/20 and Shobana took two wickets.
In reply, the Royal Challengers Bangalore Women began their batting with captain Smriti Mandhana and Sophie Devine. The two openers played very cautiously as Meg Lanning began to put pressure on the opponents.
Devine put up 49 runs in 8.1 overs for the first wicket with Mandhana and scored 32 in 27 balls with 5 fours and 1 six.
WPL 2024: Ex-RCB owner Vijay Mallya congratulates Smriti Mandhana-led side on becoming champions
During the chase, Smriti Mandhana withdrew into a shell and only managed to score 31 runs in 39 balls with 3 fours. Along with Ellyse Perry, she had scored 33 runs for the second wicket. However, with RCB in a precarious position at 82/2 and requiring 32 runs in 30 balls, Mandhana was dismissed by Minnu Mani.
But the experienced Ellyse Perry took RCB home without any further damages as she remained unbeaten on 35 runs, while Richa Ghosh made 17* and hit the winning runs as RCB won by 8 wickets and became the WPL 2024 champions.
Sophie Molineux was awarded the Player of the Match award.
Cricket fraternity was ecstatic as RCB completely transformed their performance from the last WPL season and became champions in WPL 2024. They lauded the SmritiMandhana-ledd side on social media.
Here are the posts:
