Bengaluru, (UNI) Royal Challengers Bangalore made it two wins in a row as they beat Gujarat Giants by 8 wickets in Match 5 of TATA WPL 2024 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Tuesday.
A disciplined bowling effort, led by Sophie Molineux (3/25) and Renuka Singh Thakur (2/14), helped RCB restrict GG to 107/7. Thakur set the platform with two wickets inside the first seven overs. GG never recovered from that, as they couldn’t find any momentum throughout the innings and managed a below-par score.
Captain Smriti Mandhana then came out attacking and hit a stylish 43(27) as the home side chased down the target with eight wickets left and 45 balls to spare.
Chasing 108, RCB got off to a breezy start but lost Sophie Devine in the process. Mandhana set the tone in style with three fours in the first over and continued to deal in boundaries as she added four more inside the powerplay to take the score to 47 in the first six overs. In between, Sophie Devine mistimed her pull straight to square leg off Ashleigh Gardner.
Mandhana and Sabbhineni Meghana continued to attack post the powerplay, but the RCB captain missed out on her half-century as she was caught and bowled by Tanuja Kanwar straight after the strategic time-out.
Meghana, though, didn’t stop and played some powerful strokes to power RCB home, along with Ellyse Perry, who finished it off in style with a four.
Earlier, Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Smriti Mandhana won the toss and elected to field. A fantastic early spell from Renuka Singh Thakur helped the home side get off to a brilliant start.
Thakur struck early as she cleaned up Gujarat Giants captain Beth Mooney with a superb inswinger in the third over.
RCB kept it tight at the start and built pressure. Phoebe Litchfield and Harleen Deol then released the pressure valve, hitting three fours in the Shreyanka Patil over to take RCB to 29/1 at the end of the Powerplay.
Mandhana handed Renuka Singh a fourth straight over and she brought another valuable wicket, having Litchfield stumped via some smart glovework by Richa Ghosh. The slowdown continued for GG as they could manage just one boundary, a six, from the 7-10 overs and that pressure brought another wicket as Veda Krishnamurthy holed out in the deep to Molineux, and then Harleen (22 off 31) was run out in the same over via a mix-up with Ashleigh Gardner.
The wickets continued to fall as Georgia Wareham sent back Gardner, and Molineux cleaned up Kathryn Bryce for her second wicket.
Dayalan Hemalatha battled hard for her 31*(25) to take GG past 100, but the visitors didn’t find any sort of momentum in the innings and were restricted to 107/7 at the end of 20 overs.
