WPL 2023: Delhi Capitals keep Royal Challengers Bangalore winless with 6-wicket victory

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) misery in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) doesn’t seem to end as they slumped to their fifth defeat in a row.

On Monday, March 13, Delhi Capitals (DC) handed them a six-wicket defeat at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Mumbai.

With the defeat, RCB’s fate of progressing to the next round isn’t in their own hands anymore. Apart from winning their last three games, the Challengers will also have to depend on the outcome of other games to finish among the top three teams.

Ellyse Perry scored back-to-back half-centuries, but both her knocks went in vain. On Monday against the Capitals, she scored 67 runs off 52 balls with four fours and five sixes. She got a reliable partner in Richa Ghosh, who raced her way to 37 off 16 with three fours and as many sixes.

Perry and Richa added 74 runs for the fourth wicket off 34 balls to give the RCB innings much-needed impetus. Prior to that, the Challengers found themselves in all sorts of trouble. Smriti Mandhana’s poor run of form continued. Sophie Devine started stepping on the gas to score 21 before Shikha Pandey rattled her woodwork.

Heather Knight perished to a superlative catch by Pandey at short fine leg. Pandey was the pick of the DC bowlers with figures of 4-0-23-3. Richa and Perry’s onslaught meant that RCB put up a challenging target of 151 for the Capitals to chase down.

But their efforts couldn’t pay dividends as the Capitals chased the target down with two balls to spare. DC lost the early wicket of Shafali Verma, who got out to Megan Schutt for a golden duck. The Capitals made a comeback through a 44-run stand for the second wicket.

Capsey did most of the hitting in the partnership to score 38 runs off 24 balls with eight fours before Preeti Bose accounted for her wicket. Meg Lanning had an off day with the bat after Sobhana Asha got her prized wicket.

Jemimah Rodrigues hit three fours on her way to 32 before Asha dismissed her. From there on, Marizanne Kapp and Jess Jonassen took charge and got the target down to nine off the last over.

With seven needed off four balls, Jonassen hit Renuka Singh for a six over deep mid-wicket to level the scores. Jonassen finished the game by drilling Rneuka down the ground for a four.

While Jonassen stayed unbeaten on 29 off 15, Kapp kept her calm in a run-a-ball 32. The Capitals strenghthened their position at second with eight points and a net run rate of 1.887.