WPL Final: How Ellyse Perry and spin trio brilliance helped RCB finally end trophy drought

“The feeling has not sunk in yet, maybe it will take time”.

Smriti Mandhana’s statement after guiding the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to the Women’s Premier League (WPL) title on Sunday could very well be attributed to the franchise’s massively loyal fan army as well.

RCB, after all, are a franchise that enjoy a massive following, certainly one of the biggest in cricket and one that is rivalled only by the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). It is this fan army that remained steadfast in their support despite the team failing to win a single trophy for more than a decade.

The men’s team has finished runners-up thrice in 16 attempts while the Mandhana-led women’s side were off to a forgettable debut in the WPL, finishing second-from-bottom with six losses in eight matches last year.

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RCB appeared to have fallen off track once again this WPL season, starting their campaign with back-to-back wins before losing four of their next five matches to suddenly face the prospect of missing out on the playoffs for a second season in a row.

In the end, however, Bangalore managed to turn the tide when finding themselves in a do-or-die situation, beating defending champions Mumbai Indians in contrasting fashion twice in a space of three days — including in the Eliminator — before outplaying Delhi Capitals in Sunday’s final to walk away deserved winners.

As Mandhana received the glittering trophy from BCCI secretary Jay Shah and president Roger Binny and proudly lifted it with her teammates amidst confetti and fireworks, she helped realise a longstanding dream for those millions of fans who had grown accustomed to disappointment over the years and more often than not, relied on mathematical probability as well as the performance of other teams for survival.

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The words Ee Sala Cup Namde, a phrase made popular by the ever-optimistic RCB fans which roughly translates to “this year the cup will be ours” finally came true for the franchise with its trophy cabinet finally having something other than dust and cobwebs for display.

Perry, spin trio shine bright in summit clash

There were a number of factors that contributed towards RCB’s success in the second season of the WPL, which saw the league jointly hosted in Bengaluru and Delhi after taking place entirely in and around Mumbai. None more so than Ellyse Perry’s all-round heroics as well as the spin troika of Shreyanka Patil, Sophie Molineux and Asha Sobhana and their brilliance in the two playoff contests.

Perry’s status as a bona fide superstar of the game stems from her ability to create magic with bat or with ball even in the direst of situations, and to shine brightly and single-handedly win matches for Australia or for her franchises from time to time. It was very much the case in their final league match of the season, in which they faced a must-win situation against an upbeat MI in Delhi.

The 33-year-old smashed records as she tore the Mumbai batting lineup to shreds with a haul of 6/15, before anchoring her team’s chase with an unbeaten 40. On Friday during the Eliminator, it was Perry’s knock of 66 off 50 deliveries that ultimately made the difference, helping RCB post a relatively competitive 135 when they could’ve ended up with something way lesser.

Perry didn’t exactly find herself in a nail-biting situation during RCB’s run chase in the final with skipper Mandhana fairly set at the crease and the match very much in their grasp. However, extraordinary things are known to happen in crunch games such as these and one wicket can often lead to collapses of epic proportions, as had happened with the Capitals earlier in the day.

Her unbeaten knock of 35 off 37 deliveries was by no means the whirlwind knock that she’s perfectly capable of dishing out, but helped steady the Royal Challengers following Mandhana’s dismissal and ensured they did not do anything stupid in the remainder of their innings.

That Bangalore were able to chase a modest target of 114 down in a canter to the point where they were able to take the game to the final over and still ended up winning by eight wickets would largely come down to the efforts of Molineux, Patil and Sobhana.

The spinners bowled three extraordinary overs between them to help RCB pull a rabbit out of the hat in the Eliminator on Friday, with the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side’s title defence coming to an abrupt end, that too from a position in which they needed 20 off 18 with seven wickets in hand.

On Friday, the trio were miserly in the death overs (18-20), giving away just 14 runs while collecting a wicket each. On Sunday, however, it was raining wickets for the three as the Capitals ended up losing 10 wickets for just 49 runs to go from 64 for no loss after seven overs to 113 all out.

Capitals skipper Lanning had opted to bat after her RCB counterpart Mandhana had called incorrectly during the toss. And Indian opener Shafali Verma was a woman on a mission thereafter as she blasted two fours and three sixes after overcoming some early jitters to race into the 40s at a strike rate of more than 160, relegating Lanning to that of a second fiddle.

The kind of start they managed to get off to, Delhi appeared destined for a second 180-plus total in as many meetings against Bangalore at the Kotla. All it took for them to collapse like a house of cards, however, was one over from Molineux, in which she gave away just one run while collecting three key wickets to turn the game on its head.

Verma perished while attempting to smash Molineux out of the park, holing out to George Wareham at deep midwicket. The imperious form that she was in that day, her dismissal alone would’ve cost Delhi 10-15 runs in the final, which is massive by T20 standards. Even more inexplicable, however, was the manner in which Jemimah Rodrigues and Alice Capsey departed in successive deliveries later in the over, both getting bowled while attempting to play variants of the sweep shot.

Lanning briefly tried to resuscitate the innings but could only face a few deliveries before getting trapped leg-before plumb in front of off and middle and burning a review on her way back to the dugout, becoming the first of Patil’s (4/12) four wickets on the day.

The writing was already on the wall at this point for the Capitals, that getting past the 150-mark was going to be a real challenge for them and that they needed something extraordinary to post a challenging total from here. Thanks to Patil’s guile as well as a brain fade or two on the part of the DC batters, that revival never really came along as they barely managed to crossed the century mark folding.

Bangalore had begun slowly in the chase and openers Mandhana and Sophie Devine appeared to be under a bit of pressure staving off quality spells from Marizanne Kapp and Shikha Pandey. Devine, however, smashed Radha Yadav for 18 runs in the first over of spin in the Bangalore innings to instantly lift any pressure that was starting to build on them. Even though Delhi did strike twice later, it was this over that would’ve come as a body blow to Lanning and Co and virtually dashed their hopes of mounting a late fightback.

In the end, all it took for Perry and keeper-batter Richa Ghosh was to play sensibly and not take any undue risk, an approach that worked alright for them in the end as they got home in 19.3 overs, exactly the number of overs MI had taken to beat DC last year.

One has to feel for Lanning here. The former Australian captain isn’t exactly used to getting her heartbroken, on the cricketing field at least. This is an individual who led the Southern Stars to five ICC titles — four T20 World Cup triumphs along with the 2022 ODI World Cup. Winning comes almost as naturally to Lanning as does breathing.

And yet the Capitals have failed to crack the code of winning the big match despite dishing out dominant group-stage performances that helped them finish top the table and secure direct entry into the final in both seasons. And this is where captain Lanning and head coach Jonathan Batty have plenty of work to do over the course of the next one year.

DC Women certainly have the quality to deliver a first-ever trophy for their franchise the way RCB Women did for theirs, but it’s going to take some work on the part of the senior leadership to try and inculcate a big-match mentality in their ranks.

For now, Mandhana and Co can afford to party hard upon reaching their hotel and unwind for a few days in celebration of everything that went right for them this season.

Let’s also not forget the fact that their victory might just have increased expectations from the men’s team days before the 17th season of the IPL gets underway, with fans probably clamouring for Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli emulate Mandhana and Perry and finally bag a title for themselves.