News Room : Thanuja, Rachintha score centuries as Thurstan defy Isipatana to earn Tier ‘A’ promotion – The Island

Barely 24 hours after 202 was chased down easily on the opening night of WPL 2025, a target of 165 proved to be tricky on the same pitch for Delhi Capitals, who got over the line on the last ball against Mumbai Indians for a two-wicket win. It came down to 30 from 18, 10 from six, two off the last ball and eventually a matter of centimetres as Arundhati Reddy put in a dive to make her ground that turned out to be the winning runs.

Under-19 World Cup-winning captain Niki Prasad will remember her WPL debut for taking DC within touching distance. She held the chase together in the end with her 35 off 33 and started the last over with a four when they needed 10 to win but holed out when the equation was two off two.

The game otherwise saw collapses in both innings after blazing knocks from the frontline batters. Nat Sciver Brunt led MI to a respectable total with her unbeaten 80 off 59 and Harmanpreet Kaur blasted 42 off 22, but they soon lost 7 for 35. Shafali Verma’s 43 off 18 set the tone for the chase to hammer away 60 runs for DC in the powerplay, but they soon lost four wickets for 16 runs that made the equation far more tense and took it down to the last ball.

As the match got closer and closer with DC losing wickets, there were three run out decisions that all went to the third umpire Gayathri Venugopalan, and those decided the game. The first came in the 18th over when Shikha Pandey was given not out on her first ball, which resulted in DC getting a bye. No part of Pandey’s bat seemed inside the crease when the LED wicket lit up, but the third umpire gave it not out, basing her decision on a later television frame in which the bail was visibly dislodged.

The second came in the next over when DC needed 16 from eight. Radha Yadav was given not out when she ended up bouncing her bat off the ground while diving in; the bat was in the air when the wicket lit up but the umpire, again, was heard going by when the stumps were visibly broken. Radha then smashed the next ball for a six and brought the equation down to 10 off the last over.

The last instance was on the last ball of the game, when DC needed two off two. Reddy put in a dive while trying to complete the second run and the stumps lit up when the bat seemed to be on the crease line but the third umpire gave it not out again and it sparked off celebrations for DC.

Shafali came out all guns blazing even as Shabnim Ismail made Meg Lanning look clueless against her outswingers and beat her six times in 12 balls before eventually knocking over her off stump. Shafali, at the other end, tore into Saika Ishaque with a belligerent hit for a 22-run over. She followed a big six over the covers with four consecutive fours, three of which raced to the off-side boundary and one straight back over Ishaque’s head. Shafali then took Hayley Matthews for 15 runs in the last powerplay over with two fours and a six although she mis-timed one in the same over to midwicket.

Two balls later Lanning fell when Ismail got a fourth straight over and it soon became four wickets in four overs when Jemimah Rodrigues was dismissed by Amelia Kerr and Annabel Sutherland missed a shooter from Sciver-Brunt. When DC thought the partnership between Alice Capsey and Prasad of 33 was bringing them back on track, Capsey found Ismail at long-on and DC were in trouble, still needing 56 off 31 with five wickets down.

The match turned again when another WPL debutant,Sarah Bryce, also punished Ishaque and then followed an edged four off Sciver-Brunt with a six on the leg side. Bryce soon fell though, for 21 off 10, but Prasad held her nerve to chaperone the lower order into the last over before it went down to the last ball.

Pandey made a stellar start to her WPL campaign with some delicious inswing into both right and left-hand batters. She struck twice in her first spell; first in the first over when she made Matthews edge to slip for a duck and four overs later she knocked over Yastika Bhatia’s leg stump in a frugal spell of 3-0-8-2.

The other bowlers were not spared so much though. Capsey leaked 19 runs in an over, with Sciver-Brunt showing her dexterity by placing the ball perfectly in the gaps for boundaries. She dabbed one late off Capsey on off, she scooped Reddy on leg, and she unleashed powerful pulls to help MI to 41 for 2 in the powerplay.

Harmanpreet often starts slow and then suddenly flicks her switch on in T20s, and on Saturday this happened in the eighth over. Once she carved Radha over cover-point for four off a no-ball, Harmanpreet launched the free hit for a six over long-off to make it an 18-run over. Next over, she picked Reddy for a six over long-on in a 15-run over but the assault didn’t last too long.

After back-to-back fours off Sutherland on the off side, Harmanpreet smoked a six over the midwicket rope to reach 8000 T20 runs and followed it with another four over point. But when she went for another slash outside off, she handed a catch to Prasad; nobody else would hit a six in the remainder of the MI innings.

Sciver-Brunt had also struck eight fours by then to lead MI past 100 with Sutherland’s 20-run over. Sciver-Brunt reached fifty off 36 balls to keep MI in touching distance of 10 an over with seven overs to go and seven wickets in hand.

MI, however, slipped and didn’t even last all 20 overs; they lost wickets in nearly every over from thereon. Kerr was run-out at the non-striker’s end when Minnu Mani deflected a ball off her own bowling, S Sajana edged a slower one to the keeper, Amanjot Kaur yorked herself against Capsey to lose her stumps, and there were two more run-outs as the tailenders tried to give the strike to Sciver-Brunt at the death. When she did get strike, she used her power to despatch the older ball and finished with her highest WPL score.