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The 14th match of the Women's Premier League (WPL) 2024 was played between the UP Warriorz and defending champions Mumbai Indians Women at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. In Thursday's match, Harmanpreet Kaur's side defeated Alyssa Healy's Warriorz by 42 runs to clinch the second spot in the WPL 2024 standings.
After the Mumbai Indians captain, Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss, she decided to bat first at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, where two successive totals of over 190 runs were scored in back-to-back days. But, MI had a tough start in the early stages of the powerplay, losing the wickets of the openers Yastika Bhatia and Hayley Matthews for low scores.
Harmanpreet Kaur (33) joined Nat Sciver-Brunt (45) in the middle to stitch together a 59-run stand for the third wicket to steady the Mumbai Indians innings. After their dismissals within a span of a few overs, Amelia Kerr provided the finishing touches to the MI batting effort, scoring 39 off just 23 with six fours, while receiving able support from Sanjeevan Sanjana at the other end, who got 22 off just 14 with four fours, to help them reach 160/6 in their allotted overs.
In pursuit of the 161-run target, UP Warriorz lost the wickets of their captain Alyssa Healy, Kiran Navgire, and Chamari Athapaththu for single-digit scores in the powerplay. Grace Harris struggled to get any sort of fluency in her innings, scoring 15 runs off 23 balls, despite hitting a couple of big sixes against the Mumbai Indians bowling lineup.
MI bowlers ran riot in Delhi as Saika Ishaque picked three wickets followed by Nat Sciver-Brunt's two wickets while Shabnim Ismail displayed a lethal bowling performance by giving just six runs in her four-over spell and picking a wicket.
UP all-rounder Deepti Sharma stood tall at the crease when other batters failed to make an impact as she smashed six fours and two sixes on her way to an unbeaten 53 runs in just 36 balls. However, her efforts went in vain as the defending champions clinched victory by 42 runs.
