Following his side’s eight-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their Women’s Premier League (WPL) title clash, Delhi Capitals head coach Jonathan Batty expressed happiness at how his team fought till the very last over.
An all-round Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) led by yet another solid knock by Ellyse Perry and brilliant bowling spells from spinners Shreyanka Patil and Sophie Molineux captured their first-ever Women’s Premier League (WPL) title after defeating Delhi Capitals by eight wickets in the title clash at Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday.
DC lost their second successive WPL final. Following the loss in the post-match press conference, Batty lauded skipper Meg Lanning and the team for the fight they put up.
“Every game she has been unbelievable. She has poured her heart and soul into this tournament and into DC. We (Lanning and Batty) just talk about where we are in the game, how we can get the players back up and how we have to fight. We fought magnificently and I am really proud of our players. We bowled and fielded really well,” said Batty.
The coach said that looking back at the match, he would not have had done anything differently, though he admitted his side could not do itself justice with the bat.
“We bowled fantastically. We could not do ourselves justice with the bat. We were a few runs short after that fantastic start. As a fielding unit, credit to all our players. I do not feel we should have had done things differently looking back,” said the coach.
Batty said that the match could have been different had they reached 150-160 runs.
“We back our batters to play aggressively and positively. They have been brilliant throughout the tournament,” he added.
Batty lauded the DC seamers for keeping the game alive till the very last over and controlling the run rate of RCB batters. Talking about the performances of Indian domestic stars, Batty said, “Our domestic players have stepped up and improved. They worked really hard. We were running camps etc over the last 12 months. Quality of cricket has been fantastic this time around from all teams.”
DC won the toss and elected to bat first. Openers Shafali Varma (44 in 27 balls, with two fours and three sixes) and skipper Meg Lanning (23 in 23 balls, with three fours) started off really well for the team with a quickfire 64-run opening stand.
However, Shreyanka Patil (4/12), Sophie Molineux (3/20) and Asha Sobhana (2/14) helped RCB bounce back just after the powerplay and removed Delhi batters one-by-one, triggering an unfathomable batting collapse. DC was all out for 113 in 18.3 overs.
In the chase of 114, RCB put on a 49-run opening stand, powered by Sophie Devine (32 in 27 balls, with five fours and a six).
However, RCB was tested by Delhi bowlers in middle overs and skipper Smriti Mandhana (31 in 39 balls, with three fours) departed at a crucial juncture to leave RCB at 82/2 in 15 overs. However, Ellyse Perry (35* in 37 balls, with four boundaries) andRicha Ghosh (17* in 14 balls, with two fours) finished the chase with three balls left. Minnu Mani and Shikha Pandey took a wicket each for DC.
Molineux took home the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
