In this post I run my eye over the doings of the five franchises in the competition to date.
RCB Women
The Royal Challengers Bangalore men are the Cinderella club of the IPL – they are one of the founding franchises but have never won the competition. The women’s side have had a horror start in the inaugural competition, with four defeats in four games, the last confirmed just now, with their opponents having 10 wickets and exactly seven overs to spare.
GUJURAT GIANTS
Not in quite as desperate a position as RCB, they have one win and two losses from their three games, but they also have a massive negative net RR, which could well stymie any attempt to move up the table – wins are no longer enough for them – they need to win big for it really count.
UPW
Their huge win against RCB today puts them third in the table, behind second place on net run rate. Their three front line slow bowlers, Ecclestone (4-13), Deepti Sharma (3-26) and Rajeshwari Gayakwad (1-26) proved too much RCB’s batting. Although I don’t think it made a difference today, given the sheer margin of superiority enjoyed by UPW, RCB’s habit of using Heather Knight at number five has proved costly in at least two of their defeats, when she played excellent cameo innings too late to influence the result. In today’s match, Alyssa Healy scored 96* off 47 balls, making RCB’s modest 138 look positively risible, while Devika Vaidya played the support role with 36* (31) at the other end.
DELHI CAPITALS
Like UPW they have two wins and one loss from three matches. They have a somewhat better net run rate.
MUMBAI INDIANS
They have hit the ground running, with three wins from three games, and they have all been very comfortable wins as well. It is at the moment hard to look beyond them for the inaugural WPL champions. I would actually be more inclined to back UPW to spring a surprise in this regard than DC for all that the latter are currently second.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
aspiblog 