Royal Challengers Bangalore spinner Sophie Molineux turned the tables upside down with a jaw-dropping over in the first innings of the final against Delhi Capitals. With the Capitals getting off to a flying start, Smriti Mandhana's side was put under the pump early on the final at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
Mandhana threw almost everything to stop the flow of runs against the prolific pair of Meg Lanning and Shafali Verma but to no avail until Molineux breath-taking over. The Capitals won the toss and opted to bat first in the big final. They went all guns blazing with the two openers notching another fifty-plus stand. In six overs, the Capitals collected 61 runs for no loss. But Georgia Wareham bowled a stingy three-run seventh over before Molineux, the left-arm spinner ran through the top order.
She got the wickets of Shafali, Jemimah Rodrigues and Alice Capsey in the space of four balls to turn the fortunes in the first innings. The Aussie spinner first got Shafali on a fuller ball angling into the DC opener, who picked Wareham at deep mid-wicket, the longer boundary.
Rodrigues was promoted up the order but could not trouble the scorers as she drew a second-ball duck. Rodrigues looked to sweep a tossed-up delivery on the middle and leg stump but it was not as full as the batter expected as she missed out on the sweep to get cleaned up.
The Aussie did not stop anytime soon and got Capsey on the very next delivery. Capsey pre-empted a lap sweep way too early like giving a telegram message to her. The spinner saw it and slowed down her pace to outfox the batter.
Watch the over here:
Delhi Capitals' Playing XI:
Meg Lanning (c), Shafali Verma, Alice Capsey, Jemimah Rodrigues, Marizanne Kapp, Jess Jonassen, Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Shikha Pandey, Minnu Mani
Royal Challengers Bangalore's Playing XI:
Smriti Mandhana (c), Sophie Devine, Sabbhineni Meghana, Ellyse Perry, Richa Ghosh (wk), Sophie Molineux, Georgia Wareham, Shreyanka Patil, Disha Kasat, Asha Sobhana, Renuka Thakur Singh