Nat Sciver-Brunt, Harmanpreet deny Capitals again as MI reclaim WPL crown

A terrific half-century from skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and an all-round performance from the tournament's leading run-getter Nat Sciver-Brunt helped Mumbai Indians reclaim the WPL title as Delhi Capitals agonisingly lost their third straight final. Marizanne Kapp came up with an excellent all-round display to try and prevent Capitals from being runners-up again but her efforts went in vain as DC lost by a narrow margin of 8 runs.

Primed to finally lift the crown that evaded their grip right at the end in the last two years, Capitals kickstarted the run chase of 150 on a disastrous note, losing both Meg Lanning and Shafali Verma inside the opening three overs. Sciver-Brunt outwitted Lanning with an offcutter to breach her defence and shatter the leg stump before Shabnim Ismail deployed the same tactic to trap Verma LBW. If not for the three boundaries that Jess Jonassen and Jemimah Rodrigues fetched in the sixth over, DC would have finished the powerplay with a run rate under six.

However, any hopes of a recovery on the back of those three boundaries came crashing down when Amelia Kerr entered the attack and immediately struck as Jonassen mistimed a googly, only to get a top edge. More trouble was in store as Saika Ishaque arrived at the other end and had Annabel Sutherland stumped to reduce DC to 44/4. While Rodrigues broke the shackles with back-to-back boundaries off Kerr, the New Zealander gave a strong riposte in the same over to eke out a leading edge off the same batter to reduce the chasing side to 66/5.

At this point, the Capitals would have sensed that it was a case of another missed opportunity. But a heroic effort from Kapp, who had already done her bit with the ball in the first half, kept DC in the hunt. Having slammed Sciver-Brunt over deep midwicket for a six, she also pulled one past short fine-leg to pick up a boundary and then followed it up with consecutive fours off Hayley Matthews. The jitters were well and truly back for MI after the South African went 4,6,4 against Ishaque to bring the equation down to a gettable 35 off 24.

Even though Niki Prasad was playing second fiddle, she came up with a timely drive to ease some pressure on Kapp. With 29 needed off 18, all DC needed was one good over to bring the chase under control. However, it was Sciver-Brunt who came to MI's rescue yet again by dismissing Kapp and Shikha Pandey off successive deliveries that came as a crushing blow for the Capitals. Prasad then kept the opposition on their toes with a huge six off Matthews but Sciver-Brunt's experience came to the fore as she managed to close out the game in excellent fashion in the final over by conceding just five runs when the Capitals needed 14.

Earlier in the evening, Kapp and Shikha Pandey made life difficult for MI in the powerplay with a top class new-ball spell that saw them concede just 10 runs in the first four overs. Kapp, who bowled Matthews with a peach, went on to bowl all four overs on the trot and finished her spell with the wicket of Yastika Bhatia as well. After 8 overs, the inaugural champions were reeling at 28/2 and badly needed the experienced duo of Kaur and Sciver-Brunt to bail them out.

After initially biding their time, the duo got going with the English all-rounder smashing a couple of boundaries before Kaur took on Sutherland for a six and a four in the very next over. What followed was a very good period of play for MI as the boundaries kept flowing. Kaur slammed Jonassen for a hat-trick of boundaries and added a couple more off Minnu Mani to bring up an excellent half-century. That five-over phase saw MI score 59 runs which gave the run rate a massive fillip.

With the game appearing to slowly slip away, Sciver-Brunt hit one straight to square leg to give Capitals a breakthrough which they capitalised. Kerr and S Sajana were sent back by Jonassen in the following over and Sutherland came back for her final over to get rid of the big fish as Kaur hit one to deep extra cover to depart for 66. 103/2 soon became 118/6. The MI lower order then added some handy runs to drag their team to 149, which eventually proved to be just enough to get their hands on the trophy for the second time in three years and extend DC's misery.

Brief scores: Mumbai Indians 149/7 in 20 overs (Harmanpreet Kaur 66, Nat Sciver-Brunt 30; Marizanne Kapp 2/11, Jess Jonassen 2/26) beat Delhi Capitals 141/9 in 20 overs (Marizanne Kapp 40; Nat Sciver-Brunt 3/30, Amelia Kerr 2/25) by 8 runs