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The UP Warriorz bagged their first points in the league by beating Delhi Capitals on February 22nd during the Women's Premier League (WPL). The match was conducted in Bengaluru to mark Warriorz’s initial step in the 2025 WPL season. The game of the two sides was a set of two halves. UP Warriorz was at 109/7 whenever the scoreboard crossed 15 overs and it seemed like they would lose once again. But Chinelle Henry put the team on her shoulders and was able to single handily reverse the game while smashing an unfathomable 18-ball half century.

Henry’s aggressive 62 runs off only 23 balls left the Delhi Capitals disoriented and before bewildered. She completely decimated the bowling sides entire strategy and brought the target up from 140-150 to nearly 180 single handedly. Now the Capitals were visibly stressed from the moment Megh Lanning and Shafali Verma took the field. Despite the fact that the pair have over 1000 runs together in the WPL, the tunnel vision nature of their partnership was absent. The pressure was visible and young Kranti Goud managed to clean bowl the former Australian captain which will be a Wicket she cherishes for years to come.

The powerplay was unmatched and jaw dropping, but I guess we will never know whether they took thier time to deliberate what was post phono plea hearted shattering or it was a long topping away tradition that came back to bite them in the end. Jemimah Rodrigues played an astonishing inning carrying her team and scoring 50. Helped maintain one end firmly while the other collapsed left, right and center. Marizanne Kapp was utterly dismal along with Annabel Sutherland. After thier failure it was up the ever so trusty Niki Prasad and Shikha Pandey to attempt to bring some control back to the match.

They met their demise while attempting to do so as Prasad handed Henry her medicine by scoring a six and two fours in the 17 th over before out of nowhere Grace Harris got a hat trick and ended the game abruptly. Harris became only the third bowler in WPL history to claim a hat trick with the UP Warriorz being only the second team to do so after Deepti Sharma last year against the same team. Catalysts of Issy Wong’s US did it first in the foremost edition of WPL.

Players to get a hat trick in WPL

Issy Wong (MI vs UPW) - Navi Mumbai, 2023 (Kiran Navgire, Simran Shaikh, Sophie Ecclestone)

Deepti Sharma (UPW vs DC) - Delhi, 2024 (Meg Lanning, Annabel Sutherland, Arundhati Reddy)

Grace Harris (UPW vs DC) - Bengaluru, 2024 (Niki Prasad, Arundhati Reddy, Minnu Mani)

Although she was on the losing side, Henry was awarded Player of the Match as besides the runs, she sent down four overs and also took a key scalp in the form of Kapp, the experienced South African allrounder.

It is the second defeat for the Capitals in four matches and their campaign is yet to take a full flight. Having lost the finals in the last two seasons, it seemed like this one was going to be theirs with a couple of quality additions in keeper batter Sarah Bryce and a lower order local finisher in Niki Prasad. However, the things haven’t worked the way they would have liked, and would need to wrestle the momentum back to get amongst wins as RCB and Mumbai Indians seem to have found their formula yet again after the last season.

 


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