Ellyse Perry's brilliance has powered the Royal Challengers Bangalore into the playoffs of the Women's Premier League 2024 with a stunning win over Mumbai Indians in the 19th match of the tournament. In the crucial clash played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, RCB defeated the defending champions by 7 wickets after chasing 114 with five overs left.
With this not only RCB have confirmed a place in the playoffs but UP Warriorz and Gujarat Giants have been knocked out officially. All three teams for the knockouts have been confirmed as the Bangalore side became the final team to earn the ticket for the playoffs. Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians have already booked their places in the knockouts.
It was a special show by Ellyse Perry, the Aussie all-rounder was all over Mumbai with the ball and then made 40 runs with the bat to be adjudged as the Player of the Match. She displayed brilliant skills on seam bowling with venomous deliveries nipping back in and proving to be a nightmare for the batters. She registered the best bowling figures in the history of WPL as she took a six-wicket haul.
Perry then played a strong hand with the bat as well. RCB had a meagre target of 114 ahead of them. Smriti Mandhana and Sophie Molineux started things off. Molineux was dropped by Nat-Sciver Brunt in the third over of the game but was removed by Hayley Matthews stumped out. Nat-Sciver got Mandhana and then Shabnim Ismail cleaned up Sophie Devine to send them in some trouble.
However, Perry and Richa Ghosh stabilised things. Ghosh offered a simple chance to Nat-Sciver early in her innings but the England star had a terrible day at the field as she could not hold on to it at mid-wicket.
That was possibly the last chance as Richa then brought out her best, hitting Amelia Kerr and Nat-Sciver for boundaries. She looked in a hurry as the wicket-keeper batter amassed finished things in the 15th over itself, smashing 15 runs off Vastrakar and taking the side to the win.
Delhi are almost through to the finals as they are on first place and have a strong Net run rate. But that could change if they lose way too big in the final league stage match of the tournament between Delhi and Gujarat Giants. MI have 10 points from 8 games and an NRR of 0.02, while DC have 10 points from 7 games and a strong NRR of 0.92.
