Image Credit- BCCI
With her team needing five runs off the final ball, a
T20 rookie enters the pitch. After seeing her skipper get out and losing two
wickets in the first five deliveries of the last over, she will be up against a
bowler full of confidence. She faces a stacked deck of cards. The fielder
believes she has a chance when she sees the ball looping up a touch, so she
takes two strides down the pitch, swings hard, and boom—the ball goes towards
wide long-on. She leaps and moves to her right, but the connection is clean. a
thrilling victory on the first night of the season, sealed with a last-ball
six.
It sounds very Bollywood, don’t you think? The WPL
2024 season opener certainly has the feel of a box office hit. A night that
started with the biggest names in cinema history shaking their legs at the
opening ceremony culminated in an exhilarating finish when 29-year-old
all-rounder S Sajana hit Alice Capsey over the wide long-on boundary to give
Mumbai Indians a four-wicket victory over Delhi Capitals.
Bengaluru hosted the WPL’s inaugural match, drawing
large crowds to the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The majority of the publically
accessible stands were full. During the song and dance, they watched the
cricket with the same fervour as they had when they yelled their heads off and
danced to the music.
The winners of the previous season engaged in a boxing-like battle to establish
control and gain the upper hand in the game. Everybody had their moments, but
every punch was immediately met with a counterpunch. Mumbai’s opening blow came
from South African fast bowler Shabnim Ismail, who removed Shafali Verma and
registered a speed gun reading of 128.3 kph.
Then the 19-year-old Capsey led the Capitals’ comeback
and upsurge. Ice cream is Capsey’s favourite treat. She like Prue Pizza as
well. as well as crossing lines. She made 75 from 53 balls on opening night,
hitting 11 of them (eight fours and three sixes) to give the Capitals a boost
after a sluggish start. To bat on, it wasn’t the simplest pitch. The covers on
the surface during the opening ceremony, according to Capitals head coach
Jonathan Batty, had a difference:
Capsey made sure the Capitals’ innings didn’t stop
once she got going by adding 64 for the second wicket with captain Meg Lanning
and 74 off 40 balls with Jemimah Rodrigues. Following the powerplay, the run
rate shot up to 4.33, 6.50 after ten overs, and 7.93 after sixteen. Advantage
Capitals finished on 171 for 5 thanks to a cameo by Marizanne Kapp.
Mumbai won five out of five chases last season, for a perfect record. They had
to pull off the greatest chase in WPL history, though, after losing West Indian
sensation Hayley Matthews’ second ball. Their rock at No. 3, Sciver-Brunt, also
collapsed shortly after.
Mumbai started to bounce back as Yastika Bhatia
delivered the counterpunch. Bhatia began the game calmly, more of an
accumulator than an aggressor, but she quickly put Shikha Pandey and Annabel
Sutherland to shame as she raced to 30 off 18 balls and then reached her maiden
T20 fifty off 35 deliveries. Even though she was near her breaking point,
Bhatia had taken Mumbai by storm.
Harmanpreet Kaur, the skipper of Mumbai, was at the opposite end of the
spectrum. She had entered the WPL having scored five runs or fewer in her
previous five white-ball innings. So she made the decision to alter the story.
Harmanpreet led the charge only after Bhatia was gone,
having started with a smooth cover drive. Harmanpreet hit two consecutive fours
from Sutherland in the fifteenth over, with the asking rate averaging
approximately 10.66, but she kept her best for last. In her innings of 55
deliveries, she hit just one six, but it was a big one that reduced the score
to 12 off six balls.
Mumbai appeared ready to deliver the final blow, but Lanning still needed to
act. Despite the offspinner hitting ten runs in her opening over, she offered
Capsey the final over. As she had intended, Pooja Vastrakar and Harmanpreet
fell off the first five balls, and so the evening proceeded. It must be
Capitals Day, right?
However, Sajana, who is known as “the Kieron
Pollard of the Mumbai team,” demonstrated that the analogy was valid when
she hit the game-winning six off the very first ball she faced in the WPL.
The match was breathtaking in the context of opening games. It had started with
a hint of Bollywood and finished with cricket hitting the news very
appropriately.