There was a nice embrace between Meg Lanning and Shabnim Ismail at the end of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) match in Bengaluru. When Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals met earlier in the season, in the battle of retired international superstars it was the South African pacer who looked sharper and dismissed the DC captain with a peach. But on Friday, Lanning stamped her class, taking down Ismail with an array of boundaries, including a stunning on-drive, as DC went on to beat MI in a one-sided contest to go top of the table. “I’ve played a lot against her and she’s a great competitor I love coming up against her. So yeah, it was nice to get a couple away today,” Lanning said after the match. It was just one of the many things that went her way.
The ‘win-toss-win-match’ trend continued as MI were asked to bat and never got going, managing just 123/9. The run-chase was then broken open early by Lanning and Shafali Verma – the WPL’s most prolific duo – as DC put together a perfect match to win with 33 balls to spare.
While the chase appeared to be a formality, the game was set up by DC’s bowlers, led once more by veterans Shikha Pandey and Jess Jonassen. While the Indian pacer was impressive in the powerplay to prevent MI from getting off to a flier, Jonassen picked up the two wickets that mattered – that of the red-hot Nat Sciver-Brunt and captain Harmanpreet Kaur. It was also, arguably, the best fielding performance any team has put together in this year’s WPL, headlined by a catch of the tournament contender by Annabel Sutherland, who ran in 28m from long on to pull off a low diving catch to dismiss Amelia Kerr.
Watch the catch here:
A #TATAWPL Classic 🤩
Annabel Sutherland plucks one out of thin air 😮
Is this the best catch of the season yet? 🤔
Updates ▶️ https://t.co/wVyWwYwJ0S #TATAWPL | #DCvMI | @DelhiCapitals pic.twitter.com/T8rzoMcRMf
— Women’s Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) February 28, 2025
“It was an incredible catch You know We speak about as a team wanting to attack every ball that goes in the air and and try and get there. That was the epitome of that so I’m it was certainly crucial for us,” Lanning said. “We wanted to put all three facets together. We’ve had patches where we’ve played well so far but not the whole package. You want to keep improving throughout the tournament and we certainly feel like we’re doing that.”
While there were plenty of good bowling performances on the night, Lanning chose to highlight one in particular in her post-match chat. Over three years of WPL, the former Aussie captain has typically used every possible opportunity to put the spotlight on (even without prompting sometimes) Indian domestic performers. And she gave a glowing review of Minnu Mani’s bowling, as the offspinner impressed with her flight and pace variations during her spell of 3/15. “Special shout out to Minnu, she she’s been bowling extremely well throughout the tournament and picked up a couple of crucial wickets for us as well. She’s got some really incredible skills, she’s able to turn the ball when she wants to and then some good variations as well. It’s been a real improvement from from the whole of our team, but particularly some of our local domestic Indian players which has been great to see.”
While going top of the table is important, DC would have wanted to address their Net Run Rate before the last phase of this tournament, given that only the first-placed team gets a direct entry to the title clash. And they did just that, boosting their NRR from -0.223 to +0.201.
Brief scores: Mumbai Indians-W 123/9 (Harmanpreet Kaur 22; Jess Jonassen 3/25) lost to Delhi Capitals-W 124/1 in 14.3 overs (Meg Lanning 60*, Shafali Verma 43) by 9 wickets
