WPL Match 2, RCB vs DEL - Talking Points and Who Said What?

After the historic opening game between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Giants, the exhilarating action continued in the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League as Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals took on each other on Sunday, March 5 at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai.

After being put in to bat first, Delhi Capitals opening duo of Shafali Verma and Meg Lanning ripped apart the highly talked about bowling attack of RCB as they added 162 runs for the first wicket in 14.3 overs. Marizanne Kapp and Jemimah Rodrigues gave the perfect finish to the innings as Delhi notched up 223/2 in the first innings.

In reply, RCB got off to a decent start as Smriti Mandhana (35 off 23) and Ellyse Perry (31 off 19) played attacking knocks. However, their batting line-up succumbed under the huge scoreboard pressure and got restricted to 163/8 in 20 overs handing a win to Delhi by a massive margin of 60 runs.

As another one-sided encounter in the WPL came to an end, let’s take a look at the talking points from the second match.

Shafali Verma and Meg Lanning’s opening stand

After being put in to bat first on a belter of a track at the Brabourne Stadium, Shafali and Lanning made full use of the conditions and were in attacking mode right from the word 'go'. Lanning scored 72 off 43 balls smashing 14 fours while Shafali played a scintillating knock of 84 off 45 balls clobbering ten fours and four sixes in her innings.

Tara Norris’ brilliant five-wicket haul

Having a cushion of 223 runs on the board, the Delhi bowling attack picked up wickets at regular intervals. Tara Norris was the destroyer-in-chief for her team as she picked up 5/29 in four overs. Her five-wicket haul included prized scalps of Ellyse Perry, Heather Knight, and Richa Ghosh.

Delhi Capitals' all-rounder Marizanne Kapp (39 off 17) said -

"That's the nice thing about being an all-rounder, if you don't go well with the ball you can make up with the bat. It was good to come out and hit the ball cleanly today. Credit to our openers. I was really proud of the girls that came in after the openers, they played really well. It was my first game under Meg (Lanning), hopefully I can learn a few things from her going forward. "

 Losing Captain Smriti Mandhana said -

"We gave away too many runs, around 20-30 runs too many. As a pace bowling unit, we didn't go about badly, that's something we'll take away from this game. We have back-to-back games, we'll have to take away some positives from the game before coming back tomorrow. We got plenty of starts, but couldn't continue and play a big innings. The wicket didn't change a lot, just needed someone to take it till the 20th over."

Winning Captain Meg Lanning said -

"It was a lot of fun, great venue to play at and the crowd was amazing. Great atmosphere. We were thinking about bowling but we weren't too concerned about batting. Was fun watching Shafali bat from the other end. It was a lot fun, we were smiling all the time. That's the great thing about this competition, you get to play with players you wouldn't have otherwise played with. We felt like it was a good score but it was such a good wicket so we knew we had to bowl well. It's great to begin the tournament with a win."

Tara Norris (5/29 in 4 overs), Player of the Match said -

"Delighted. I think Meg and Shafali started fantastically with the bat to take a bit of the pressure off the bowlers. But yeah, really happy. I never thought I'd have an opportunity like this in my career so just to be here has been absolutely amazing. So I'm absolutely delighted. [Asked which was her favorite wicket] Probably the first was pretty special. Like I said, just to be here has been amazing. So the fact that I got a chance to play and have a bowl has been awesome."

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