Another day and another Natalie Sciver-Brunt show! Mumbai Indians registered a comfortable win over UP Warriorz, elevating themselves to the top of the Women’s Premier League points table. It was an all-round brilliance from Sciver-Brunt — she took three crucial wickets and then smashed a 29-ball fifty, her sixth in the WPL, to help MI secure an eight-wicket win. She finished the game with an unbeaten 75 off 44 balls.
Despite a slow start to their innings, MI redeemed themselves against a strong UPW spin attack, reaching the target with 18 balls to spare. A 133-run partnership between Sciver-Brunt and Hayley Matthews laid the foundation for their successful chase. Matthews also contributed a fifty of her own at almost a run-a-ball pace.
Except for Chinelle Henry, none of the UPW bowlers were able to restrict MI’s batters from freely attacking. Deepti Sharma and Sophie Ecclestone, despite taking the only wickets in the second innings, conceded more than seven runs per over.
With hardly any dew present, MI had decided to bowl first at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The pitch, with a few cracks here and there, was fairly green, providing ample areas for the pacers to target. However, it was the spinners who got the most lateral movement, with their balls turning more than average. And Harmanpreet Kaur came out astute in her assessments as she utilised her bowlers brilliantly.
Despite conceding 62 runs in the powerplay while taking only one wicket, MI redeemed their effort as UPW’s batting collapsed from 81-1 to 93-5. Amelia Kerr and Sanskriti Gupta triggered the collapse, as both of them incessantly bowled tight and in alignment to their field placements, helping mount consistent pressure over the UPW batters.
The middle order was a big concern for UPW coming into this game and despite a solid foundation provided by their top-order batters — which saw Grace Harris, promoted to the top of the order, blow away Mathews for 20 runs with two sixes and two fours — it remained the reason for their collapse. And with the ball not coming on the bat, any progress UPW batters tried to make was halted with wickets at regular intervals.
Sciver–Brunt took three wickets, dismissing Kiran Navgire, Henry and Shweta Sherawat with Shabnam Ismail cleaning up the tail enders.
Brief Score: UPW 142-9 (20) (Grace Harris 42, Vrinda Dinesh 33; Nat Sciver-Brunt 3-18, Sanskriti Gupta 2-11) lose to MI 143-2 ( Nat Sciver-Brunt 75*, Hayley Mathews 59; Sophie Ecclestone 1-29, Deepti Sharma 1-25) by 8-wickets.