Buoyed by Virat Kohli’s pep talk, Royal Challengers Bangalore continued to fight for another day as they took their first five-wicket win over UP Warriorz after five straight Women’s Premier League defeats. at Navi Mumbai on Wednesday. After a concerted showing from their bowlers led by Ellyse Perry, whose 3/16 saw UP Warriorz bowled out for a mediocre 135 in 19.3 overs, RCB sailed past target with 20-year-old Kanika Ahuja winning the match . 46 from 30 balls with eight fours and one six. She set a score of 60 runs with India keeper Richa Ghosh (31 not out from 32 balls, 3x4s, 1x6s) playing second fiddle to perfection.
Ahuja and Ghosh had joined forces at a stage from which the game could have gone either way with RCB having lost four wickets with 60 runs on the board and a tough challenge for them.
But the two young batters played with a lot of conviction and command, leaving UP Warriorz with no chance to penetrate further before securing a win for their team.
RCB got off to a poor start, losing the in-form Sophie Devine for 14 after early aggression, and captain Smriti Mandhana (0), who endured another flop show with the bat. The RCB captain was cleared by Deepti Sharma on the third ball she saw.
Devika Vaidya got the main break in the seventh by getting Perry (10) caught by Sophie Ecclestone and in the ninth Deepti Sharma removed the dangerous Heather Knight (24), caught by Kiran Navgire, with 60 points on the board.
In the first half of the game, Perry was great with the ball for RCB despite being introduced late.
The right arm fellow stopped the UP Warriorz attack as the pair of Grace Harris (46) and Deepti (22) threatened to take the game away from RCB, and also accounted for Shweta Sehrawat (6) to take figures of 4-0-16 to note -3.
Harris missed a creditable half-century, falling for 46 off 32 balls with five fours and two sixes.
Harris and Deepti led the recovery for UP Warriorz – teetering at one point at 5/31 – with a solid 69-run stand that took them past 100-run. Harris made the most of a lifeline from Richa Ghosh, who missed a line that stumped Sobhana Asha when the batter was down to nine.
Devine set the tone in RCB’s favor with two wickets in the first over to come back 4-0-23-2, Sobhana Asha got plenty of turns during a largely impressive 4-0-27-2 and Megan Schutt produced a measly spell of 4-0-21-1 to cap off a combined bowling show for RCB.
Earlier before the start of the match, former RCB captain Virat Kohli met the team and also had a chat with Mandhana, whose torrid run with the bat continued.
In their previous meeting at Brabourne Stadium on 10 March, UP Warriorz had crushed RCB by a whopping 10 wickets in a one-sided match, with Alyssa Healy scoring a stunning 96 not out in the winning case.
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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