Mumbai Indians143 for 2 (Sciver-Brunt 75*, Matthews 59) beat UP Warriorz 142 for 9 (Harris 45, Vrinda 33, Sciver-Brunt 3-18) by eight wickets
Another Sciver-Brunt show
She came in early when MI were 6 for 1 in the fourth over, with Matthews struggling to get her timing and rhythm back. Chinelle Henry was swinging the ball both ways, making it difficult to score off in the powerplay. But Sciver-Brunt took only five balls to prove that wrong.
She welcomed Saima Thakor with a hat-trick of fours in the sixth over by sending the ball to long-on, deep square leg and deep cover. She played deep in the crease, put her bottom hand to good use and effortlessly maneuvered the ball to both sides of the pitch.
When there was width on offer, she cut fiercely, and when the length was short, she pulled behind and in front of square and toyed with the Warriorz bowlers. She brought up her fifty off 29 balls with nine fours and brought the equation down to 54 off 47 balls. This included a hat-trick of fours off Henry as well, in the 11th over.
From there, it was cakewalk for MI as Matthews also found her feet and started hitting boundaries. Overall, Sciver-Brunt struck 13 fours in her 44-ball stay.
Harris opens, Vrinda moves down to No.3
After four matches, Warriorz took a cue from the WBBL and the Hundred and promoted Harris to open for the first time in WPL after her struggles in the middle order. The move felt just right as she looked in her element from the start.
With Navgire falling in the first over, it was up to Harris and Vrinda to steady the innings on a pitch that was holding up a bit, and the duo shared 79 runs off 52 balls to give Warriorz a solid start.
Harris began with a scoop against Sciver-Brunt and punished Shabnim Ismail for three fours on the bounce in the second over. She kep attacking and smashed 6, 4, 4, 6 off Matthews in the fourth. She swept and pulled towards square leg, muscled the ball to long-on, and rolled her wrists to bisect the gap between mid-on and midwicket.
On the other hand, Vrinda – who had scored only 40 in the previous four matches – looked in much better touch and played second fiddle to Harris. She played a lofted cover drive elegantly to start the third over and followed it with a hook in the same over. Unlike Harris, Vrinda found boundaries on the off side with classy cover drives in her 30-ball 33.
The first two partnerships gave Warriorz 81, the most for them in this WPL so far.
Middle-overs muddle continues for Warriorz
It was something the Warriorz captain Deepti Sharma had admitted recently, that they needed to do better in the middle overs. But they couldn’t as Warriorz squandered a strong start by losing wickets in heaps, again, to lose the plot. From 81 for 1, they collapsed to 123 for 7, losing five of those wickets in the middle overs for 30 runs.
It began when Amelia Kerr removed Harris in the 10th over after the batter was dropped on 44 by Ismail off Jintimani Kalita in the previous over. Offspinner Sanskriti Gupta then bowled a momentum-changing 11th over when she dismissed both Vrinda and Tahlia McGrath in the space of four balls. Warriorz slowed down and did not quite recover after that over.
Overall, they have lost the most wickets (24) in the middle overs (7 to 16) in this WPL so far and have been the slowest too (6.72) in that phase. With no individual brilliance rescuing them this time, their streak of two losses was broken.
Srinidhi Ramanujam is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo
