MI first restricted DC to 131 for 9 and then returned to overhaul the target with three balls to spare. (Twitter/Women's Premier League)Nerves frayed, fingers sweated, the spectators twitched in their seats, the support staff wore anxious faces, but in the middle of all the tension and suspense, Nat Sciver-Brunt remained calm and ensured that the first name inscribed on the WPL trophy would be of Mumbai Indians. She fittingly wrapped up the game with a scooped-over, her most audacious stroke of the night.
She could indulge a bit in the end, because such indulgences were rare in her unbeaten 60 off 55 balls, a knock straight from the MS Dhoni finishing school. For much of the knock, hers was an invisible presence. Someone who was fresh from a 38-ball 72 in the eliminator, her big-hitting prowess well-established, she was splendidly restrained, feeding off singles of nudges and deflections for most of her knock. At the start, she shackled herself, gathering just seven runs from 17 balls.
But you know how Dhoni does it; he makes it look like a struggle, even a lost cause, but then he is diligently gnawing away at the target, pushing the opponent to the back-foot inch by inch, before raining the knockout punches. When Sciver-Brunt blazed down the surface to check-drive Radha Yadav over extra-cover in the eighth over, it seemed like she was about to unshackle. She was not, as she continued to grit and graft. The early passages of her 71-run partnership with Harmanpreet played out in a similar tempo. Both were content in strolling along at five runs an over, in pursuit of 131, a target not too steep, but not a stroll either. Towards the end of the partnership, Kaur accelerated, picking timely boundaries, ensuring that the required run-rate seldom soared over 10 runs. Sciver-Brunt too chimed in with an occasional four—there was gorgeous steer off Shikha Pandey.
𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐜! @mipaltan captain @ImHarmanpreet with the prestigious #TATAWPL Trophy 👏👏#DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/JhnGLS5wku
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023
Together, they whittled down the target to a manageable 37 off 24 ball. Just as they seemed to nail the game, just as anxiety replaced smiles and the fingers began to sweat less, Pandey ran Kaur out with a flat and fast throw towards Alice Capsey, who disarrayed the stumps with hands as fast as lightning.
Nat-Sciver chose the moment to counterpunch — part of a finisher’s genius is knowing when to attack and when not to, and she chose the ripest moment of the game. Capsey’s off-breaks oozed negligible threat, and collected a pair of boundaries, the first a brutal sweep and the second a polished reverse-sweep.
All these runs turned out to be valuable as Pandey returned to bowl a splendid 18th over, which cost just five runs.
.@natsciver scored a match-winning 60* when it mattered the most and bagged the Player of the Match award @mipaltan register a 7-wicket victory to become the inaugural champions of #TATAWPL
Scorecard ▶️ https://t.co/N0U4wKUU0z#DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/un9coN3lkj
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023
You could empathise with Pandey. She was the reason Delhi reached as far as 131 after stumbling to 79/9. She and Radha Yadav then cracked 52 runs off 24 balls, before she masterminded the run out of Kaur and delivered four thrifty overs, costing just 23 runs. But it was to be the night of the nerveless, ice-veined, Sciver-Brunt.
With Mumbai needing 22 off 12 balls, she fetched Jess Jonassen’s ball from outside the off-stump through backward square leg to suss the pressure. Her partner Amelie Kerr then snuffed Delhi’s last lingering hopes with fours off the fourth and fifth balls. In the next over, Sciver-Brunt applied the flourish, not perhaps as triumphantly as the Dhoni’s World Cup sealing six at Wankhede, but a stroke that would be remembered forever by the ecstatic supporters of Mumbai Indians.
The defeated Delhi had just their self-defeating methods to blame.
𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜!😉
Celebrations all around in @mipaltan's camp! #TATAWPL | #DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/NkAazojfbQ
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023
Rewatching the highlight reel would be embarrassing, for such was their shoddiness, their misjudgement of the nature of the wickets, the indiscretion of their shot selection and the nervousness that seized them at the faintest sniff of an implosion. Mumbai’s bowlers were intelligent and persistent, but they would readily admit that most wickets were gifted to them.
The ever-giggling, crew-cut Isabelle Wong could barely believe her fortune when she pouched all her three wickets, the first three of Delhi’s scalps, with benign full tosses. Her start was hideous, with Shafali Varma creaming her for a six and four, but the hat-trick hero of the eliminator struck with her third ball, when Verma mis-sliced a dipping full-toss, fractionally below waist-high, to point.
It was not an aberration, and the gifts kept on winking at Wong. Two balls later, Alice Capsey spooned another full-toss to cover, where Amanjot Kaur lunged forward to swoop the ball that was dying fast on her. But Delhi’s two most experienced batters, Meg Lanning and Jemimah Rodrigues, weathered the storm with a counterpunching stand of 23 runs in 15 balls. Jemimah seemed in regal touch, caressing a pair of all-hands cover-drives.
WHAT. A. WIN 🥳🥳
Absolute scenes in Mumbai!#TATAWPL | #DCvMI | #Final pic.twitter.com/IQPngHg7z7
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 26, 2023
But just then another Wong-full toss struck. Jemimah sweet-spotted a low, slow full-toss but straight to the point fielder. She stood crestfallen, as did her dazed teammates. With a 38-run Lanning and Marizanne Kapp rebuilt and seemed to take them through the road of redemption. But Kapp’s exit brought a heap of wickets, and Delhi imploded farcically.
From 73 for three, they teetered to 79 for 9 in a bizarre spell of horrendous stroke-making. Though Pandey and Yadav brought them back into the game, Mumbai were not to blink, not least when Sciver-Brunt, moulded in the MS Dhoni finishing school, was around. And how she wrapped up the game.
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