RCB Finally Won their Maiden Championship

The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) beat the Delhi Capitals (DC) by eight wickets in yesterday’s Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 final match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. With the triumph, RCB became the second team to win the WPL trophy. The Mumbai Indians (MI) won the inaugural edition last year.

Delhi Capitals Batters were disappointed

Batting first after winning the toss, DC crumbled from a solid 64/0 to 113 all-out. Sophie Molineux claimed three wickets in one over, while Shreyanka Patil finished with 4/12 and Asha Sobhana 2/14. RCB got home in the chase in 19.3 overs, with skipper Smriti Mandhana, Sophie Devine and Ellyse Perry all contributing 30s.Batting first, it seemed business as usual for the Delhi openers as they reached 64/0 after seven overs. Shafali Verma and Meg Lanning took on Renuka Singh in the fourth over, took 19 runs. DC eased their way to 61/0 at the end of the powerplay.

Sophie Molineux completely changed the match with that one over

The eighth over bowled by Molineux, however, completely turned the match on its head. Shafali (44 off 27) fell to the slog sweep, caught at deep midwicket. Jemimah Rodrigues (0) was cleaned up as she completely missed her sweep. Alice Capsey (0) attempted a horrible paddle stroke, exposing her stumps, and was knocked over. From 64/0, the Delhi Capitals crumbled to 64/3 and could never recover from the shocking over. Shreyanka dismissed Lanning for 23 with a ball that spun back sharply and caught the DC captain on the back foot. They lost two more big wickets in the 14^th over to slip to 81/6. Marizanne Kapp (8) sliced a catch off Sobhana to long-on. Jess Jonassen (3) also perished attempting a big one, hitting one straight up in the air.

Spin Trio worked for RCB

The wickets continued to fall as Minnu Mani (5) was trapped lbw by Shreyanka when she tried to paddle a length ball and missed it completely. Radha Yadav (12) was run out by a direct hit from Molineux following a complete lack of communication with Arundhati Reddy. Shreyanka dismissed Reddy for 10 and Taniya Bhatia for a duck in the 19^th over as DC were all out for 113.

Royal Challengers Bangalore were calm and composed while chasing

For the Delhi Capitals to have any chance of winning the WPL 2024 final, they needed to pick early wickets. However, skipper Smriti Mandhana and Sophie Devine added 49 for the first wicket in eight overs to ease any nerves in the RCB camp. The partnership was broken when Devine (32) was trapped lbw by Shikha Pandey as she tried to hit one across the line. Mandhana and Perry added 33 for the second wicket before the former top-edged a tossed-up delivery from Mani and was caught for 31. Perry (35* off 37) and Richa Ghosh (17*), however, took RCB past the finish line. Ghosh buried the ghost of her run-out the last time these two sides met by hitting the winning runs. She lofted Reddy for a four over extra cover to kick off celebrations in the Bangalore camp. Richa's story got completed as on last encounter against Delhi she failed to hit that one run which resulted in their loss. Yesterday she was the one who scored that winning boundary. What a beautiful sight it was!

Awards

Sophie Molineux was awarded player of the match for her game changing spell. DC were the runner ups of the tournament. Shreyanka Patil was named as purple cup winner. She was the leading wicket taker of the tournament. Elyse Perry won the orange cup. She was the leading run scorer of the tournament. RCB also won Fair Play Award of the Season. Last but not least RCB got Trophy and winning cheque. Players were delighted so were the fans.

Kevin Varchand