The inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 has got off to a sensational start for Mumbai Indians. After dominating Gujarat Giants in the season opener, the team went up against Royal Challengers Bangalore, who struggled in their first match as well.
Winning skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said –
I think batting was the same, we bowled better in the fist game then today, but we did well to restrict them to a small sdcore. We just backed ourselves to chase, everyone in the team are just happy to do it their way and they’re enjoying themselves. It happens in T20s (on the slower over-rate), you need to give that extra minute to the bowlers.
Losing skipper Smriti Mandhana said –
We could have learnt to put down a better score. We have to accept this defeat and come back better. 2-3 batters got into 20s but could not make it count including myself. We do have a good bowling side, we have 6-7 bowling options and we can’t say much to the bowlers when the batters are not putting up the runs. It is a pretty short tournament and we can’t dwell on it, even in franchise cricket if you start winning then you can go on a run. Lots of positives in the form of Kanika and Shriyanka’s batting after the top order collapse, really happy with the way they batted.
Player of the Match Hayley Matthews said –
There wasn’t much difference, was able to bat a bit longer today, the freedom in this MI team has given me plenty of confidence. They’re going well at the moment, watching the ball nicely and the ball is coming on nicely. They did put me under pressure in the 1st over, but it was nice to come back well. We’ve so many match-winners in the team and Harman is leading us well.
