Meg Lanning’s Delhi Capitals (DC) will lock horns against Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 final match at Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday.
In the WPL 2024, bowling allrounder Asha Sobhana helped the Bengaluru-based franchise to win matches by displaying a scintillating performance in her last-over spell. In their previous match, RCB faced Mumbai Indians (MI) in the eliminator round, where the 33-year-old defended 11 crucial runs and propelled Mandhana’s side to the finals.
On the other hand, India batter Jemimah Rodrigues shined for the Delhi-based franchise to help them qualify directly for the finals. In her last four innings, Rodrigues scored 38*, 58, 17 and 69* to gain the skipper’s confidence. Unlike last year, the 23-year-old played powerful knocks this season and finished off many games in style.
Mandhana’s side have squared off against the Capitals four times in the first two seasons of the WPL, but RCB could never clinched a win against last year’s finalists. After the end of the group stage matches, DC stood at the top of the standings with 12 points, which helped Lanning’s side move directly into the finals. DC won six matches after playing eight league games. At the same time, RCB finished in third place in the league standings for which they had to play the eliminator round against Mumbai.
Recapping RCB’s previous match against MI, the Red and Golds were on the back foot, throughout the game, but their ability to keep the run rate in check proved to be a major factor in their success. During MI’s chase of 136, with sheer resilience, RCB stayed in the game and kept their lengths tight making MI work hard for each boundary. In the end, MI batters’ nerves dwindled which led to a 5-run win for RCB.
While speaking at the pre-match press conference, Mandhana asked her teammates not to take “too much stress” since they are only “two seasons into this”.
“We were just thinking we’re only two seasons into this, so let’s not take too much stress about what has happened over the last 15 years or correlating with similarities [to the men’s team],” Mandhana was quoted by ESPNCricinfo as saying. Meanwhile, Lanning said that she didn’t enjoy the 40-meter boundary.
“It is a nightmare having a 40-meter boundary on one side. That is one thing I haven’t necessarily enjoyed as a captain. There’s so much more power and strength in the game now that people are clearing the ropes pretty easily,” Lanning said.
Royal Challengers Bangalore Squad: Smriti Mandhana (C), Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Disha Kasat, Richa Ghosh (Wk), Sophie Molineux, Georgia Wareham, Shreyanka Patil, Asha Sobhana, Shraddha Pokharkar, Renuka Thakur Singh, Simran Bahadur, Indrani Roy, Shubha Satheesh, Sabbhineni Meghana, Nadine de Klerk, Kate Cross, Ekta Bisht.
Delhi Capitals: Meg Lanning (C), Shafali Verma, Alice Capsey, Jemimah Rodrigues, Marizanne Kapp, Jess Jonassen, Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy, Taniya Bhatia (Wk), Shikha Pandey, Minnu Mani, Ashwani Kumari, Aparna Mondal, Titas Sadhu, Sneha Deepthi, Annabel Sutherland, Laura Harris, Poonam Yadav.
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