Deepti Sharma's valiant 88* went in vain as UP Warriorz suffered their maiden loss to Gujarat Giants in the Women's Premier League. In another final over finish, the Giants successfully defended 26 off the final over but Deepti ran them for money to end up eight short of the 153-run target. With this win, GG are alive for another day in the tournament while RCB are almost through to the playoffs.
Chasing a target of 153, the Giants were kept in the chase only by Deepti as five of the other six batters could not even manage to enter into double digits. A rising youngster Shabnam Shakil ran through the batting lineup with big scalps of Alyssa Healy, Chamari Athapaththu and Shweta Sehrawat. She got Healy out in the first over itself when the UP skipper mishit a shot at mid-off with Mannat Kashyap taking the catch. She got Chamari in the same over as the Sri Lankan icon miscued a shot to Gardner at covers. Kathryn Bryce and Gardner added more salt to the wounds with the wickets of Grace Harris and Kiran Navgire.
Shweta Sehrawat and Deepti tried rebuilding things with a mini-stand of 29 runs but the former was cleaned up by Shabnam in the seventh over. Finding it extremely hard to stay alive in the game, Deepti led from the front and found Poonam Khemnar to take the UP ship together. They first stabilised things and then went all guns blazing from the 14th over. UP needed 90 from the final 42 balls and 35 runs from the next three overs gave them plenty of hope. Deepti did the heavy lifting while Khemnar chipped in too. But a three-run 18th over turned the tides. UP needed 40 from the final two overs and while they got 14 from the 19th over, 26 runs from the final over seemed way too many.
Deepti however, kept the hopes alive. Khemnar first gave the strike to Deepti on a wide delivery, before the all-rounder hit a six. The next two balls saw singles but Deepti hit a six in the fourth ball to bring it down to 10 needed off 2 balls. However, Meghana Singh's back-to-back slower deliveries brought two runs and ended the game.
RCB are on third place at the moment and have six points and a game left. UP have played out their full eight games and have six points as well. GG have four points in seven games. All three teams are in contention but RCB just need a win in their final game against Mumbai Indians to cruise through regardless of what GG does. They can still qualify after losing but will need to depend on NRR then.
