Vadodara, Feb 17 (IANS) Renuka Singh Thakur and Georgia Wareham picked three wickets each as an impressive bowling performance from Royal Challengers Bengaluru helped them bowl out Delhi Capitals for 141 in 19.3 overs in match four of WPL 2025 at the Kotambi Stadium.
On a pitch slightly on the slower side, DC made 51 runs in eight overs when the first time-out happened. Jemimah Rodrigues and captain Meg Lanning eventually added 59 runs for the second wicket. But once their partnership was broken, DC’s innings unravelled spectacularly as they lost five wickets by the time the second time-out came.
Sarah Bryce made 23 in a late effort to help DC go just above 140, and give their bowlers something to bowl at. Renuka and Georgia, who made a double-strike in the 18th over, got good support from Kim Garth and Ekta Bisht, who picked two wickets each.
Electing to bowl first, Renuka provided the early breakthrough for RCB when Shafali Varma tried to hit it over mid-off, but failed to time her shot well and was caught out for a golden duck. With RCB getting a fair amount of inward movement, they got some lbw shouts too, but it didn’t yield them another wicket.
Meg got going by cutting off Renuka to pierce the gap between backward point and short third for four, before driving through point to pick another boundary. Meg cut Kim deftly past short third for four, followed by Jemimah driving off the pace past mid-off for a boundary.
Jemimah turned on the heat by lofting Ekta for six, followed by slamming, pulling and cutting Joshitha VJ for a six and two fours, the last of which came off a misfield. After drilling Georgia for four, Jemimah’s joyride ended on the very next ball when she came out for a reverse-sweep, but missed the ball and was duly stumped from behind by Richa Ghosh.
After that, DC endured a slide which derailed their innings: Meg’s scratchy knock ended when she got a top-edge on the pull off Kim and was caught by deep fine leg. Annabel Sutherland tried to break free, but hit straight to extra cover off Renuka, while Jess Jonassen smashed to mid-wicket’s hands off Ekta, who later had Marizanne Kapp holing out to long-off.
Sarah and Shikha Pandey put an handy 25-run stand before the former was stumped off Georgia. A delivery later, Radha Yadav hit a ball straight back to Georgia, as the leg-spinner completed a simple caught and bowled dismissal. Renuka got her third wicket when Shikha Pandey sliced to point, followed by Kim ending DC’s innings by having Arundhati Reddy hole out to deep mid-wicket.
Brief Scores: Delhi Capitals 141 in 19.3 overs (Jemimah Rodrigues 34, Sarah Bryce 23; Renuka Singh Thakur 3-23, Georgia Wareham 3-25) against Rajasthan Royals
–IANS
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