Gujarat Giants have a star-studded line up with the likes of Beth Mooney, Sophie Devine, Ashleigh Gardner and Georgia Wareham. But the one who stood out was a girl called Anushka Sharma, who was making her WPL debut.
Anushka’s 30-ball 44 wasn’t the biggest score in the match but the timing of it made it instrumental in setting up their highest-ever WPL total, which proved enough to bag two points against UP Warriorzs. And the innings immediately showed why the 22-year-old is rated so highly by scouts, and why she sparked a bidding war between three teams at the WPL auction.
She walked into bat in the fifth over, when Mooney fell, and saw Devine hole out in the sixth. Giants were well-placed at 56 for 2 at the end of the powerplay, but with Gardner taking time to settle, they were in danger of losing momentum. Anushka ensured that never happened. After taking five balls to get her eye in, she targeted legspinner Asha Sobhana in the eighth over. In the next over, she drove Ecclestone through the covers, showing no fear against one of the highest-rated bowlers in the world.
She then showed her smarts when she took strike for the first time against Deandra Dottin, lofting her over the mid-off fielder who had just been brought up before that ball. By the end of the 12th over, Gujarat were 103 for 2, and Anushka had scored 30 off 21 balls while Gardner was still struggling to take off at 18 off 19.
From there, Gardner took charge, racing to a half-century off just 30 balls as the next three overs went for 49 runs. Anushka hit two more boundaries before picking out long-on, and she had done her job by then, perfectly bridging Devine’s early onslaught and the fireworks from Gardner followed by Wareham, which took Gujarat past 200.
Phoebe Litchfield’s 40-ball 78 kept Warriorz in the hunt, but her dismissal proved decisive. Warriorz, however, managed to stem some net-run-rate damage courtesy a neat cameo from Asha Sobhana.
Warriorz lost Kiran Navgire in the first over, to Renuka Singh, but Litchfield looked in sparkling form from the outset. Her exhilarating strokeplay somewhat consigned Meg Lanning to the background for much of their 70-run second-wicket stand before the floodgates opened, with Warriorz losing three wickets in four deliveries to go into a full-blown collapse.
At 74 for 4, Warriorz held back Dottin and promoted their lone retention, Shweta Sehrawat. And she made everyone go wow first ball, launching Renuka down the ground for six. If that was audacious, two consecutive sixes off Gardner in the following over were truly exhilarating.
Litchfield’s progress to her half-century in 29 balls was no less entertaining. She swept, reverse-swept, paddled, and moved across the stumps to mow length deliveries into the leg side. Warriorz’s hopes rose through the course of a fifth-wicket stand of 69, but Litchfield’s dismissal, coming soon after that of Sehrawat who was bowled missing a slog-sweep off Rajeshwari Gayakwad, proved to be the clincher.
Asha’s cameo from there on merely reduced the margin of defeat.
Brief scores: Gujarat Giants 207/4 (Gardner 65, Anushka 44; Ecclestone 2/32) beat UP Warriorz 197/8 (Litchfield 78; Renuka 2/25, Wareham 2/30).
