Defending champions Mumbai Indians will look to their captain Harmanpreet Kaur for inspiration when they take on a plucky Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Women's Premier League Eliminator in New Delhi on Friday. Mumbai go into the match on the back of five wins and three defeats, including the seven-wicket loss inflicted on them by RCB earlier this week. However, the holders consider it a rare day off. “I have seen consistency. If we make an exception for the last game, all the other games we have won. Yes, the performance was not good in the last game, but that's okay.”
“We are prepared for the next match. And this happened before the Eliminators, so we take this as a good sign,” MI batting coach Devika Palshikaar said on the eve of the match.
Last year, UP Warriorz dented MI's play-off chances by beating them in the league stage. Harmanpreet and Co then won a one-sided Elimnator before claiming the title.
“Don't you think history is repeating itself? We went through this last year too, just before the Eliminators there were little ups and downs but we bounced back in the Eliminator and played one-sided against them.
“So we take this as a sign of 'luck', hoping that this year we will repeat the same history with the same results as last year,” Palshikaar added.
Harmanpreet rescued MI with a scintillating 95 not out against Gujarat Giants and the skipper will be key with the bat on Friday.
RCB has improved immensely from last year, but Smriti Mandhana and Co. have qualified for their first knockouts thanks to an inconsistent run. They have won four games and lost four.
The positives for RCB include Mandhana returning to form, and Richa Ghosh and all-rounder Ellyse Perry among the points.
The bowling unit of Sophie Devine, Sophie Molineux, Asha Sobhana, Shreyanka Patil and Perry have also done quite well but will have to be razor sharp against MI.
“We're very excited to qualify for the play-offs. To do that, we've needed different contributors at different times. It's just that we haven't been perfect by a long shot,” said RCB head coach Luke Williams. “We have had performances that we thought we could improve on. We are ready to hopefully play good cricket on Friday and if we are good enough on Sunday too,” he added.
MI are enjoying a 3-1 head-to-head against RCB.
The winner of the clash will take on Delhi Capitals in the final on Sunday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Topics mentioned in this article