Captain Harmanpreet Kaur made a savage unbeaten 95 to fire Mumbai Indians to a seven-wicket win over shellshocked Gujarat Giants in their Women’s Premier League match in Delhi on Saturday. (As It Happened | Full Coverage | Schedule And Points Table)
Harmanpreet, whose blitz came in just 48 balls and contained 10 fours and five sixes, and opener Yastika Bhatia (49, 36 balls) played🧸 fine hands as the defending champions scaled down Gujarat’s 190 for seven in a stunni🧜ng chase.
They reached 191 for three with a ball to spare.
Yastika and her opening partner Hayley Matthews (18) added 50 runs in 6.3 overs as MI m♊ade a strong start to their chase.
Bu▨t Mumbai lost Nat-Sciver Brunt and Bhatia before they e𝓀ven reached 100 inside 13.3 overs.
When the match entered the last🔜 five-over phase, MI needed 72 runs off 30 balls to win at more than 14 runs per over.
Tough task, you would imagine. But Harmanpreet, who was dropped on 40 by Phoebe Litchfield off Sneh Rana near the ropes, turned on the beast mode from that point and took it upon herself to take her te🌸am past the tape.
She went on a boundary-h𝓀itting spree and added 93 runs for the fourth wicket in just 38 balls with Amelia Kerr, who made just 12 in that partnership.
Harmanpreet smashed off-spinner Rana for 24 runs in the 18th over tﷺhrough a sequence of 4, 6, 4, 4, 6 to reduce the equation to a much moﷺre manageable 23 runs off 12.
Mumbai did not bungle from there and notched up a win that has taken ༺them to the top of the chart with 10 points.
Earlier, dynamic fifties𝐆 by skipper Beth Mooney and D Hemalatha propelled Gujarat Giants to a✃ competitive 190 for seven.
Mooney (66, 35b, 8x4, 3x6) and Hemalatha (74, 40b, 9x4, 2x6) added 121 runs for an electrifying second꧒-wicket alliance in a little over 11 overs after the Gujara💝t side elected to bat first.
Their power walk started afꦆter the early departure of opener Laura Wolvaardt (13), who Matthews cleaned up.
Both Mooney, who struck his second fifty in a row, and꧃ Hemalatha slipped into overdrive straightaway.
While Hemalatha was severe on MI spinners, the vete꧂ran Mooney focused on the opposition pacers.
A straight six of pacer Brunt and back-to-back foursꦺ off Shabnim Ismail, who recently breached the 130 kmph barrier, helped ♔Mooney to chug along at a scoring rate of over 200.
The introduction of pacer Pooja Vastrakar prompted Mooney to take her batting to another level as two scoops behind the wicketkeeper gave her as many max💯imums.
At the otheꦓr end, Hemalatha pꦛicked up leg-spinner Kerr for punishment as the right-hander smashed her for 4, 6, 4 in the 10th over to collect 15 runs.
Mooney reached her fifty in 27 balls and minutes later Hemalatha too crossed the mark off 28 balls as the Giantsﷺ moved ahead in a brisk clip.
But the dismissal of Mooney 🔯in the 14th over, right after the Strategic Time Out, applied breaks on Gujarat's scoring.
The attempt to pull off-spinner Sajana Sajeevan made her hᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ♎ᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚear the deathly clatter of stumps.
Hemalatha soon fell to Ismail as the Gujarat side lost four wickets whi𝕴le adding 28 runs.
