Leg-spinner Sobhana Asha’s clinical effort with the ball supported by superb death bowling exhibition by Georgia Wareham and Sophie Molineux helped Royal Challengers Bangalore clinch a thriller against UP Warriorz by two runs in the second match of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.
UP Warriorz looked on course to reach the target with 15 required from the last two overs sfter restricting RCB to 157/6. All rounder Deepti Sharma had pulled them closer to the line by hitting back-to-back boundaries on the first two deliveries of the 18th over bowled by Shreyanka Patil. She nailed another boundary off the fifth ball of the over as UP Wariorz scored 14 runs off the over and were looking good for victory.
The penultimate over bowled by RCB’s Warsham pulled them back as despite being struck a boundary by Poonam Khemnar, whom she clean bowled off the next delivery for 14, she conceded five runs in the over.
But 11 off six deliveries was still gettable but Deepti Sharma and Sophie Ecclestone failed to take the Warriorz over the line in the over bowled by Molineux. Both the batters took a single each in the first two balls before Shreyanka dropped Deepti at mid-off. A dot ball later, UP needed nine off two balls. Deepti Sharma marched down the track to smack a boundary past deep mid-wicket but she could not hammer the final delivery to the boundary with five needed and RCB won the match by two runs as they could manage only 155/7 in 20 overs.
Sobhana Asha kept Royal Challengers in the hunt as she claimed three wickets in an eventful 17th over, sending back Shweta Sehrawat (31), Grace Harris (38) and Kiran Navgire (1) off the first, fourth and sixth delivery of the over to derail UP Warriorz’s march towards victory.