Delhi Capitals vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, WPL 2024: DC Beat RCB By One Run In Nailbiter - As It Happened

Welcome to the live coverage of match 17 in the Women's Premier League 2024 between Delhi Capitals Women and Royal Challengers Bangalore Women. The stage is set for the epic battle between one of the most competitive sides in WPL 2024. We have Meg Lanning-led Delhi Capitals in the blue corner and Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore in the red corner. A win against RCB will give clearance for the DC's qualification for playoffs. RCB will also try to make their case strong with a victory. Follow the live cricket scores and updates of the DC-W Vs RCB-W match here. (Streaming | Full Coverage | Schedule And Points Table)

Delhi Capitals Women: Meg Lanning(c), Shafali Verma, Alice Capsey, Jemimah Rodrigues, Annabel Sutherland, Jess Jonassen, Arundhati Reddy, Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav, Taniya Bhatia(w), Titas Sadhu, Marizanne Kapp, Laura Harris, Minnu Mani, Poonam Yadav, Ashwani Kumari, Aparna Mondal, Sneha Deepthi

Royal Challengers Bangalore Women: Sabbhineni Meghana, Smriti Mandhana(c), Ellyse Perry, Sophie Devine, Richa Ghosh(w), Georgia Wareham, Sophie Molineux, Simran Bahadur, Ekta Bisht, Asha Sobhana, Renuka Thakur Singh, Kate Cross, Nadine de Klerk, Shreyanka Patil, Disha Kasat, Shubha Satheesh, Shraddha Pokharkar, Indrani Roy

The same pitch that was used yesterday. Not a lot of grass on it. Looks easy to bat on. Lots of runs on the card. Batting first might help the teams despite last night's epic encounter as there is no sign of dew.

Delhi Capitals Women have won the toss and have opted to bat

Teams:

Royal Challengers Bangalore Women (Playing XI): Smriti Mandhana(c), Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Richa Ghosh(w), Disha Kasat, Georgia Wareham, Sophie Molineux, Shreyanka Patil, Asha Sobhana, Shraddha Pokharkar, Renuka Thakur Singh

Delhi Capitals Women (Playing XI): Meg Lanning(c), Shafali Verma, Alice Capsey, Jemimah Rodrigues, Marizanne Kapp, Jess Jonassen, Arundhati Reddy, Taniya Bhatia(w), Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav, Titas Sadhu

Meg Lanning and Shafali Verma opened the batting and Renuka Thakur Singh came to bowl the first over. She conceded just three runs. A good start for RCB.

DC - 3/0 (1)

Renuka Thakur Singh came to bowl the 4th over and Meg Lanning started with a couple of boundaries, then she gave two wides. Lanning hit two more boundaries to finish her over of 20 runs.

DC - 36/0 (4)

Wicket immediately after the strategic timeout. Shafali attempts to go big with a tossed-up delivery outside off, swinging hard and slashing it to point. A safe catch by the fielder stationed there ends the partnership.

DC - 55/1 (7)

Alice Capsey hit two fours in Shreyanka Patil's second over to extract 11 runs from it.

DC - 84/2 (10)

Jemimah Rodrigues went berserk against Georgia Wareham and smashed two fours to start the over and a six to end the over.

DC - 130/2 (14)

Asha Sobhana came to bowl the 17th over and Alice Capsey smashed two boundaries in her over to bring up 150 runs.

DC - 154/2 (17)

After an 18-run over of Sophie Molineux, Shreyanka Patil held her nerves and conceded just five runs in the 20th over to stop Delhi Capitals at 181 runs in 20 overs.

DC - 181/5 (20)

Brief Score: DC - 181/5 (20)

Jemimah Rodrigues - 58 (36), Alice Capsey - 48 (32) | Shreyanka Patil: (4-0-26-4)

Smriti Mandhana and Sophie Molineux opened the batting for RCB and Marizanne Kapp came to bowl the first over. Five runs off the first over for RCB.

RCB - 5/0 (1)

Mandhana began to walk even before the umpire raised the finger. So plumb this was. Mandhana goes on the back foot and attempts to flick across the line, but misses and hits low on the pad in front of the centre. That's as plum as it gets. Poor shot and a huge wicket. Lanning punches the air.

RCB - 10/1 (2)

Ellyse Perry smashed a six and a four in Jess Jonassen's over to extract 11 runs off her first over.

RCB - 32/1 (5)

Titas Sadhu was introduced into the attack in the 10th over and she was smashed for two boundaries by Ellyse Perry. Sadhu conceded 12 runs off the over.

RCB - 81/1 (10)

This was just waiting to happen. Molineux and Perry never felt comfortable sprinting tonight. And the unavoidable happens. Cut to cover-point and there was no run; an accurate throw, which Bhatia took superbly; on the full, the ball was very near to the stumps and gone. Even a frantic full-length plunge is not sufficient. Capsey would be the most excited right now.

RCB - 89/2 (11)

Molineux was upset when she found a sweeper cover. Good catch as well. Rodrigues moves to her left, evaluates it well, and reverse-cups easily. Big wicket and RCB has suddenly lost both of its set batsmen.

RCB - 94/3 (12)

Radha Yadav came to bowl the 15th over and Sophie Devine hit two sixes and a four in her over to extract 17 runs from the over.

RCB - 125/3 (15)

Devine pulls a short-length delivery off the stumps, but it goes straight to the fielder at deep backward square leg. To the large fence, Arundhati makes no mistake. Kapp strikes the first ball she returns. Devine offers Wareham some guidance on the way back.

RCB - 154/4 (18)

With 17 runs needed off the final over, Jess Jonassen came to bowl with Richa Ghosh on strike. She smashed a six on the first delivery and missed the next. On the third delivery, she got involved in a run-out and Disha Kasat had to go. Ghosh took a double on the fourth delivery and smashed a six on the fifth to make the equation 2 runs needed off the final ball. She got run-out while taking a single on the last ball and Delhi Capital won the match by one run.

RCB - 180/7 (20)

It's a tough loss to accept. We were batting well, Richa was having a fantastic century, and Shreyanka's final over was fantastic to see. [About Shreyanka] She had a niggle, not because she was not dropped; a player of her calibre could not be dropped. Really thrilled for her, especially with the last over, which shows a lot of character. [About having so many opening partners this season]. This does not affect the way I want to bat. Would have liked to play today, and maybe better. Doesn't affect my perspective. I've had a couple of international cricket partners during the last ten years. We've seen a lot of Richa in the WPL and international cricket, and Perry was doing well until she got run out. The game might have gone either way in the final ball, and Delhi deserves credit for staying calm and winning. One run does not define us as a horrible squad. Excellent work with the shorter barrier to limit them to 180. We were certain that we could track this down. Would advise the females to keep their heads up and come back stronger the next day.

That's too stressful. Thankfully, we're on the right side tonight. I'm more calmer on the exterior than on the inside. Even the few times we lost, we did not nail the important moments, but tonight we did and were pleased with the victory. We created a solid foundation, and we thought the score at the midway point was good. We were certain that if we bowled effectively and took our chances, we would win. Our bowlers performed an excellent job. [on changing the batting order tonight] We thought that the conditions and matchups were optimal for the contest. Set batters are difficult to stop here.

Fortunately, we have two days to recover. We played three last-ball games, and it was a gift that they went in our favour. Maintain your focus throughout timeouts. Keeping things simple and not overthinking it benefited us. After losing to UP, I knew for some reason that this would benefit us. Learning from our mistakes would be beneficial the next time we played a semi-final or a huge game. Tonight's pitch was slower and lower, as was yesterday's. I determined that even if I looked bad, I needed to get runs. Winning player of the match is nice, but today is a team effort. Shikha bowled the 16th over against the world's two finest hitters, Capsey and myself, in that partnership. JJ and Meg both contributed to the last over, making it a team effort. [About Richa] I feel for her, even though I'm glad we won. This will benefit her in the future. I told her that this would benefit her; perhaps she might hit the winning runs in the World Cup final and help us win the trophy.

Delhi Capitals have pulled off a one-run win against Royal Challengers Bangalore to qualify for the playoffs. Matches are getting excited in Women's Premier League 2024. Join us tomorrow, until then, it's a goodbye from our side!