NEW DELHI: It has been a mixed
WPL
season for
Shafali Verma
. While she started with a bang by scoring two half centuries in her first three innings of the tournament, the hard-hitting opener somewhat lost her mojo in the next four matches.
The final league game against
Gujarat Giants
on Wednesday saw Shafali show her full array of strokes in a scintillating 37- ball 71 (7x4, 5x6) as Delhi Capitals won by 7 wickets, chasing down a target of 127 in just 13.1 overs.
Shafali was ably supported by
Jemimah Rodrigues
(38 n.o. off 28b; 4x4, 1x6) with the pair adding 94 for the third wicket.
The win saw Delhi, the league toppers, romp into its second successive WPL final which will be played on Sunday, while the Eliminator, to be played on Friday, will see Mumbai Indians take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The WPL this season has seen the experienced ones perform on the big stage, especially Indian stars like Deepti Sharma,
Harmanpreet Kaur
and
Smriti Mandhana
.
Only a few unknown names have stood out. One of them has been Gujarat Giants’ Bharti Fulmali. The 29-yearold has impressed with her ball-hitting skills. On Wednesday, she once again gave a strong account of herself. The girl from Amravati, Maharashtra, scored a crucial 42 (off 36; 7x4) and rescued Gujarat from a precarious 48/5.
Fulmali was involved in a 68-run stand for the sixth wicket with Scottish all rounder Kathryn Bryce (28 n.o. off 22b; 4x4) which pushed Gujarat to their eventual total of 126/9.
At the start, Gujarat were rocked by Marizanne Kapp, who swung the ball both ways and sent back Gujarat’s inform openers Beth Mooney and Laura Wolvaardt cheaply. In between Wolvaardt and Mooney’s wickets, left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen knocked back the top of Dayalan Hemalatha’s off-stump to have Gujarat tottering at 16/3.
Off-spinner Minnu Mani proved to be the trump card for Delhi, as she got the crucial middle-order wickets of Phoebe Litchfield and Ashleigh Gardner. Mani bowled with guile and mixed her pace brilliantly during her spell. Surprisingly, she found considerable amount of turn on a placid Kotla wicket.
BRIEF SCORES: Gujarat Giants 126/9 (B Fulmali 32, K Bryce 28*; M Mani 2/9, M Kapp 2/17, S Pandey 2/23) vs Delhi Capitals 129/3 in 13.1 overs (S Verma 71, J Rodrigues 38*; T Kanwar 2/20)
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