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RCB wins WPL 2024: Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore have shown what Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle, KL Rahul, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Dale Steyn could not do in 16 seasons of IPL. The Bengaluru team, which has been fighting for the trophy in the franchise T20 league for the past 16 years, has finally fulfilled its long dream in the Women’s Premier League. In the WPL 2024 season finale, Bengaluru defeated Delhi Capitals by 8 wickets to win the tournament title. In this final of the second season of the WPL, Bengaluru staged a spectacular comeback to defeat Delhi and win the first title in the franchise’s history.
Both the teams fought for the first title in this final which was held on March 17th Sunday night at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Delhi reached the final for the second consecutive time in the tournament. However, this is Bangalore’s first title match. Last year Delhi had to suffer a defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians, but this time Bangalore broke the dream of winning the title. Veteran Meg Lanning, who led Australia to a record 5 World Cup victories under her captaincy in world cricket, suffered defeat in the final for the second time in a row.
Even if the typhoon starts in Delhi..
The Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore reign supreme! 🏆
Presenting before you – Champions of the #TATAWPL 2024! 🙌 🙌
Congratulations, #RCB! 👏 👏#DCvRCB | #Final | @RCBTweets | @mandhana_smriti pic.twitter.com/mYbX9qWrUt
— Women’s Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 17, 2024
In this match, Delhi Capitals won the toss and elected to bat first. In the last two seasons, four matches were played between the two teams and Delhi won all four matches. After the toss, captain Lanning and Shefali Verma started, it seemed that the same would happen for the fifth time as well. Both of them put up a huge partnership of 61 runs in the powerplay itself. Especially Shefali boundaries rained. But Bengaluru made a dramatic comeback after the powerplay ended.
Spinners for RCB
In the 8th over, left-arm spinner Sophie Molino dismissed Shefali, Jemima Rodriguez and Alice Capsey to push Delhi back. After that, the RCB spinners spread their net wide. Delhi’s batting collapsed completely. Shreyanka Patil victimized Meg Lanning. In the same over, Asha Shobhana dismissed Marijane Kopp and Minnu Mani. Finally, in the 19th over, Shreyanka took the last 2 wickets and reduced Delhi to just 113 runs.
Even if it’s a small goal..
This goal was not too difficult for Bangalore. But had to wait for the result till the last over. Sophie Devine along with captain Mandhana gave the team a good start. Both of them made a partnership of 49 runs. After Devine (31) got out, the biggest star of RCB’s title triumph, Ellys Perry came to the crease. Accepted the responsibility of winning. Although both had difficulty in running fast, both took full time as the target was not big. But Mandhana (32) could not lead the team to victory and the team was dismissed at 82.
After that, Perry and Richa Ghosh took the team to the end. There is a partnership of 31 runs between the two. However, the match went on till the last over. Richa hit a four off the third ball and made the team the champion for the first time. Richa scored 17 not out while Perry was the star of the team’s win with 35 not out.
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