UPW vs GG highlights, WPL 2026: Gujarat Giants beat UP Warriorz by 45 runs in Vadodara

It's all but over for UP Warriorz here. Well, it was a tough wicket to bat on, but the way UP Warriorz approached this total also has been quite appalling. They needed one of the top three to bat till the end which did not happen and it is not easy for new batters to come in and start hitting straight away.

Gayakwad has picked up the second wicket in two overs. She danced down the track, and the bowler threw it outside, and Sherwat missed it completely. It was never going to be an easy chase, given how this wicket was playing in the first innings. It was only going to get tougher, and now we are seeing the same.

Litchfield is the latter batter that has fallen here. She tried to reverse-sweep the ball and ended up giving a simple catch to Renuka Singh Thakur at fine-leg. As we update this time, it is a role reversal. It is Gardner who has taken the catch in the bowling of Renuka Singh to pick the wicket of Harleen Deol.

Meg Lanning has departed here. It is another pretty unlucky dismissal for the Warriorz. She tried to hit one through the leg-side, the ball deflected off her thigh pad and rolled onto hit the stumps. Harleen Deol has walked into the middle. UP Warriorz must build a partnership here.

Kiran Navgire has fallen here. Given her poor form this season, that unlucky dismissal was the missing thing. The ball swung and was wide from Renuka Singh Navigire, got lulled and dragged her feet outside the crease, and the ball hit the pads of Beth Mooney and rattled the stumps.

Yeah, it was so interesting, obviously, we were on the field for an hour and 40 minutes. It was quite a long T20 innings and a lot happening. But yeah, it's nice to to keep it to 154 and backing our batters to knock it off. (what worked for you?) Yeah, obviously it was staying quite low, so I felt like into the pitch. And yeah, it was working for me and I kind of stuck to my guns and yeah, got a few wide ones at the death. And that's what I've been working on. So it's quite nice that a few came off.

Sophie Eccelstone has picked up Kashvee Gautam here. The batter tried to hit the ball on the leg side but missed a straight one. It was nicely tired in from Eccelstone. UP has lost seven wickets here. Batting as the ball got older and softer has been pretty tough. Sophie Devine, who is a power-hitter, has had it tough to get the timing right.

The wicket has slowed down significantly in the second half of this game. The boundaries have dried up, and it seems like 150 will be a pretty good total for the Giants to win this game. As per UP Warriorz, they have the advantage of seeing how this wicket has played in the first innings, and they will be hoping to make the most of the first six overs in powerplay.

Gardner has fallen here. She was struggling to rotate the strike and eventually lost her stumps trying to pull the ball. The ball did keep a tad bit low; it has to do more with the trajectory than the surface. It was a strategic time out after which the wicket had perished here in Vadodara. Sophie Deviene is the new batter in.

Kranti Gaud has picked up her second wicket of the evening. Anushka Sharma tried to cut the ball on the off-side and edged it to the keeper. It was a wobble seam delivery from the bowler, which did enough to induce the edge. This is a bit of a mixed start for both sides, while boundaries are coming bowling team is also picking wickets.

We are done with the opening over. Danni Wyatt Hodge did get a couple of boundaries in that opening over. The first one was short and wide from Kranti Gaud, which the batter punished, and the second one was a French cut which went past the stumps for a boundary. Neverthless there is a bit of swing on offer for the seamers here early on.

We are pitch No. 6, 55m square boundaries both sides. The straight hit on the ground is 66 meters. This is a black soil wicket, The surface is hard. It's rolled well. There are visible cracks. Now, that suggests that the wicket is dry. So in the first innings, it may not come that much onto the bat, but second innings, under lights and with dew, the ball will skid through. So it gets better for batting, gets better for chasing. Since it's black soil, because of the dew, it comes onto the bat later on. Now for the bowlers, it is a challenge, but they have to be disciplined with the line, especially keeping the stumps in play. We've seen in the previous game, the bowlers, especially the RCB bowlers... they were really good onto the stumps. The batters really had to sort of invent some shots to get through the infield. The square boundaries are shorter. So anything short, anything wider will be punished. So bowlers do have a role cut for them.

Meg Lanning(c), Kiran Navgire, Phoebe Litchfield, Harleen Deol, Chloe Tryon, Shweta Sehrawat(w), Sophie Ecclestone, Deepti Sharma, Asha Sobhana Joy, Shikha Pandey, Kranti Gaud

We are going to bowl. If we can put GG under some pressure early. It's already dewy. Back into training since the last couple of days. Assessing the conditions is really important. Perhaps not as much bounce here as Navi Mumbai. Same team for us.

Yeah, it's pretty frustrating. I'm not going to lie (on winning the toss and losing). I just think we're just not winning those small moments, whether it's in the field where you're taking chances and then people go on to make decent scores. I think tonight when they missed the stumps, we didn't capitalise on them. But as soon as we left the stumps, they capitalised on them. So, it's just those small moments that we're not winning at the moment. You know, we're two or three, so it's pretty obvious that we need to win these last three games. But, yeah, overall, it's pretty frustrating. (On how the pitch played) Yeah, you've obviously got to fight when you go back to play square against the ball... You know, I said at the toss that we had to keep the stumps in play. I think if you look at our dismissals when we got bowled or caught we were going across the line. So, I think the way that we need to go forward is to try and play really straight. I felt like that was the best option. I think a lot of the positive scoring options were down the ground. So, making sure that, you know, you give yourself the best chance in the ball does stay a little bit low, which it did at times. But yeah, overall, there's plenty of learnings, which is always a positive. But, you know, standing here after a loss is never great. We just knew that we had to utilise the wicket. It sounds pretty cliche. The bounce wasn't necessarily true. The ball wasn't always staying consistently off the same length. I've always been a decent match up to Smriti. So making sure that I keep the stumps in play. I guess the mode of dismissals that got her out on going across the line, so making sure that I stay nice and straight, knowing that she is really strong square of the wicket.

Her coach Avinash Shinde remembers her adolescent years. Gautami had lost her father when she was in sixth or seventh class. It left a lasting void. “You see other kids with their parents on special days – birthdays, functions. Nothing like that happened in her case,” Shinde says.

"Losing the first three wasn't ideal, but the group stayed upbeat. We were confident in our ability and knew we just needed to bring it for a little bit longer. It's been really great from the group to come out and play against a really good Mumbai side and get two wins on the trot. That gives us some really nice momentum heading into Vadodara now"

Beth Mooney, Sophie Devine, Anushka Sharma, Ash Gardner, Kanika Ahuja, Georgia Wareham, Bharti Fulmali, Kashvee Gautam, Tanuja Kanwar, Renuka Thakur, Happy Kumari/Titas Sadhu