GG-W vs UPW-W | Twitter impressed as Devine and Gayakwad get Gujarat Giants back to winning ways

‌Gujarat Giants ended their three-match losing streak in style with a 45-run win over UP Warriorz in the Women’s Premier League on Thursday. Sophie Devine came up with an unbeaten 42-ball 50 to help the Giants to a respectable 153/8 in tough batting conditions, while left-arm spinner Rajesshwari Gayakwad came up with an impressive spell for 3/16 in four overs to scuttle the Warriorz’s chase in Vadodara. The win took the home side to second in the WPL points table with six points from six games while the visitors were pushed to the bottom due of the heavy loss and an inferior net run rate.

As the Warriorz skipper Meg Lanning put the Giants in at the Kotambi Stadium, Danni Wyatt-Hodge got off the mark for her new franchise with consecutive boundaries against Kranti Gaud in the opening over. Her partner Beth Mooney, who is yet to set the WPL stage on fire, also got going with a four off Shikha Pandey to help the home side to a brisk start. However, Kranti bounced back in her next over to go past Wyatt-Hodge’s defence before ending Anushka Sharma’s boundary-laden cameo in her third. Despite losing two batters, the home side finished the six-over powerplay with 52 runs on the board. But Lanning was clever to tighten things up bringing on spin from both ends just after Kranti completed her four-over spell and the fields also spread. The left-arm spin duo of Sophie Ecclestone and Chloe Tryon along with Deepti Sharma and Asha Sobhana tightened things up. The quartet gave away just 57 runs in the next nine overs to bring the visitors right back into the contest. With Deepti pricing out a struggling Ashleigh Gardner, Ecclestone accounting for Mooney (38) and Bharti Fulmali finding herself on the wrong side off a horrendous brainfade from Sophie Devine, the Kiwi all-rounder was left to do the heavy lifting alone. She smashed three sixes, two of which came in the final over, and two fours and completed her fifty in the last ball of the innings. Meanwhile, Kranti finished as the pick among the visitors’ bowlers with a spell of 2/18 in four overs with Ecclestone picking up 2/22 in her four-over spell.

The chase did not start as expected as the Warriorz lost Kiran Navgire, whose woeful form continued, for a first-ball duck. However, captain Lanning and her young partner Phoebe Litchfield consolidated the the chase with a 37-run stand for the second wicket in 27 balls. The southpaw started aggressively with a four against Renuka Singh off her second ball before the duo settled in finding the odd boundaries. But against the run of play, Lanning was bowled after an unfortunate ricochet off her thigh guard in the penultimate ball of the fifth over. Though Litchfield hit a couple of boundaries, a rush of blood cost the southpaw her wicket as she persihed trying to emulate the reverse sweep that fetched her a boundary in the first ball of the same Gardner over. From then on, the side went on a freefall, slipping from 57/3 to 97/9 in a matter of over eight overs. Though Tryon tried to delay proceeding with a fighting unbeaten 22-ball 30 ,the result was a foregone conclusion as the visitors were skittled out for 108 with 15 balls to spare. In fact, Litchfield finished as their top run-getter with five fours in her 27-ball 32, while Devine played her part with the ball to end with two wickets alongside Renuka.

Good win

Moment!

Next year

LOL

True

Let's see

Really

Perfect

Unbelievable

Zero