Gujarat Giants notch up first win, hand Royal Challengers Bangalore third straight defeat

Gujarat Giants handed Royal Challengers Bangalore their third consecutive defeat in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) here on Wednesday, winning a high-scoring contest by 11 runs to record their first victory in three matches.

After splendid half-centuries from Sophia Dunkley (65) and Harleen Deol (67) propelled Gujarat Giants to a strong 201 for 7 after batting first, their bowlers did a fair job, restricting RCB to 190 for 6 in their 20 overs.

RCB opener and New Zealand batter Sophie Devine largely played a lone hand in their chase, hitting a well-made 66 from 45 balls with eight fours and two sixes.

Towards the end, Heather Knight (30 not out off 11 balls) provided RCB a glimmer of hope, but the challenge of scoring 33 runs off the last two overs and 24 off the final over proved too much for the Bangalore side.

RCB’s star batter and captain Smriti Mandhana flopped once again, falling for 18 while Ellyse Perry (32) also could not score big despite getting a start and forming a vital partnership of 43 runs with Devine for the second wicket.

"Even in our bowling, we gave away 10-15 runs more than what we expected to. There were two three overs where we conceded a lot, and not 6-7 runs," Mandhana said after the match.

"We would have gotten better (with the target) otherwise. It's a good outfield, one end is really short, that did play with few of our bowlers' in mind, we are trying to work on it." After conceding more than 200 runs for second time in three matches so far in the WPL, RCB looked set to challenge the target set by Gujarat Giants when Devine took the aggressive route and Mandhana played the second fiddle in the powerplay.

The right-handed New Zealand batter hit Kim Garth for a couple of fours in the third over and got three boundaries against Annabel Sutherland in the fifth.

The opening partnership lasted for 5.1 overs with Mandhana and Devine adding 54 runs, when the first breakthrough was provided by Ashleigh Gardner, who had the RCB captain caught at mid-on by Mansi Joshi.

In the 10th over, Gujarat captain Sneh Rana took a hard blow to her hands off a powerful return stroke from Perry. Rana did complete the over after initial treatment but left the field soon after.

Perry and Devine kept the ship steady but lack of boundaries resulted in pressure gradually increasing on them. The right-handed Perry cracked two fours off Joshi in the 12th over, but hit one straight to short third man fielder having made 32 off 25 balls with five fours in total.

It was not until the first ball of the 14th over that RCB hit their first six, with Devine clearing the ropes against Tanuja Kanwar to break the shackles as RCB needed another 85 from the last six overs at an asking rate of 14.

With 77 needed off the last five overs, Gardner dealt another blow to RCB, cleaning up the hard-hitting Richa Ghosh for 10.

Gujarat Giants stand-in captain Sneh Rana lauded the effort by her players.

"Defending here in CCI is never easy, I know it was a tough game, a high scoring game. We lived up to the game," she said.

"We are a balanced team, we have good batters and we have a good combination of players. It's something we were looking for from the first win and now we have got it (the win)." Earlier, Beth Mooney continued to remain off the field as Rana won the toss and elected to bat first for Gujarat Giants.

England’s Dunkley and Deol made strong contributions, with the former playing an aggressive knock to provided a strong headstart and the latter consolidating the innings with several other batters in tow.

Dunkley struck her runs at a strike rate of 232.1, clobbering 11 fours and three sixes to race away for 65 from just 28 balls while Deol top-scored with 67 from just 45 balls, hitting nine fours and one six during her stay in the middle.

Dunkley also recorded the fastest fifty of the WPL so far.

Deol was involved in two fifty-plus stands that laid the foundation for a huge total, with an opposition team recording a total in excess of 200 for the second time in three matches against RCB at the Brabourne Stadium here.

Deol, who moved up to the third spot in the list of most run-scorers in WPL (113 runs), also got two lifelines late in her innings.

Dunkley unleashed her power game after a slow start, welcoming Renuka Singh with a beautiful lofted six over the cover region.

The England batter took a special liking for Bose, hitting the RCB spinner for four boundaries and a six in the fifth over to collect 23 runs and bring up a stunning 18-ball 50, with the help of nine fours and two sixes.

The right-handed batter continued her assault, hitting a six and a four off Shreyanka Patil to bring up her 50-run stand with Deol off just 26 balls. Patil, however, had Dunkley hitting one straight to Heather Knight at long off to end her innings.