WPL 2024: Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry Shine as Royal Challengers Bangalore Secure 23-Run Victory Over UP Warriors

WPL 2024: Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry Shine as Royal Challengers Bangalore Secure 23-Run Victory Over UP Warriors

The Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated the UP Warriors by 23 runs on Monday, giving the sold-out fans at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium a goodbye to remember. Warriors got off to a brisk start as captain Alyssa Healy and Kiran Navgire scored 47 runs in the first five overs before the latter fell while attempting to boost the ante to 18. Warriorz was chasing a massive 199 runs to win. Before the latter was out for a controversial leg-before wicket against Georgia Wareham after a run-a-ball eight, Healy and Chamari Athapaththu kept the scoreboard moving. The Warriors needed 109 runs in the final 10 overs after RCB lost to Grace Harris for 5 when she was well caught by Richa Ghosh and Shweta Sehrawat for 1 in the span of 11 balls.

Deepti and Healy Sharma attempted to salvage the batting, scoring 24 runs in 18 balls; however, Sophie Molineux took out Healy for 55 runs, putting RCB ahead. With some forceful hits, Sharma and the other lower-order players did their best to keep Warriorz in the game, but ultimately the target proved to be a bit too much. Earlier, Smriti Mandhana’s captain’s knock (80 runs off 50 balls) and Ellyse Perry’s outstanding performance (58 runs off 35 balls) helped RCB to 198 for 3 in 20 overs, their highest score of the WPL. The hosts got off to a fast start with the new opening combination of Mandhana and Sabbhineni Meghana, who shut down the Warriorz bowlers and enabled RCB to score 51 runs in the powerplay.

The latter was caught by Athapaththu off the bowling of Anjali Sarvani in the sixth over, but she had done her part to ensure that RCB reached 57 for 1 following the powerplay. Despite Meghana’s removal, Mandhana and Perry, both southpaws, kept pushing the innings along despite Mandhana’s batting collapse. After 10 overs, the two moved RCB to 84 for 1, with the former getting a life on 28 after Athapaththu dropped her off Sophie Ecclestone’s bowling. Perry and Mandhana, the more aggressive of the two, kept RCB’s foundation strong as they led the team to a huge victory. In the thirteenth over, Mandhana reached her second fifty of the competition as RCB appeared poised to set a challenging goal for the Warriors.

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Mandhana and Perry had moved RCB to 129 for 1 at the 15-over point, and the red-and-gold ladies were primed for the decisive blow, which came from Mandhana, who produced some majestic strokes. However, after accumulating 95 runs for the second wicket with Perry, the southpaw fell for an incredible 80 runs off 50 balls in an attempt to accelerate the scoring rate even further. Perry and Richa Ghosh have to provide the winning stroke now. They scored 42 runs in 18 balls before the former was removed for an incredible 58 runs off 35 balls, which was Ecclestone’s first wicket of the innings.