(Cricket News) Deepti Sharma’s heroics did not prove enough to take the UP Warriorz over the line, as Gujarat Giants registered their 2nd victory of the season in yet another thriller at the WPL 2024. With the victory, Giants keep their campaign alive, however their qualification heavily depends upon the result of the last game of RCB.
Having won the toss, Giants got off to a great start with a 60-run stand between Wolvaardt and skipper Beth Mooney. However the breakthrough by Ecclestone, who dismissed Wolvaardt started the downfall of the Giants’ innings. The Giants went on from 60/1 to 105/5 in no time. Ecclestone despite of being a bit expensive, scalped 3 wickets and rattled the middle order of the GG alongside Deepti Sharma.
Wickets kept on falling from one end, while Mooney maintained the scoring rate from the other. She batted till the end and made sure that the Giants went past the 150-run mark. She played a scintillating knock of 74 from just 52 balls which included 10 fours and a solitary six.
Chasing a par score, the UP Warriorz were in shatters, being reduced to 35/5 in the first 7 overs. Shabnam Shakil’s exceptional spell of fast bowling were she scalped 3/11 rattled the top order of the Warrioz. However, the recovery by Deepti Sharma and Poonam Khemnar was something that Giants would not have thought of. They both came together and stitched a 109-run stand to keep the game alive.
Both the batters kept the runs flowing. The bulk of the scoring was done by Deepti Sharma, who brought up her third consecutive fifty in this year’s WPL. However, their superb effort was still not enough to take their team over the line, as they fell short by just 8 runs. The defeat came at the wrong time for Warriorz, as they now are stranded at 3 wins out of their 8 games and their qualification now depends upon the results of the other games.
Brief scores: Gujarat Giants 152/8 in 20 overs (Beth Mooney 74*, Laura Wolvaardt 43; Sophie Ecclestone 3-38) beat UP Warriorz 144/5 in 20 overs (Deepti Sharma 88*, Poonam Khemnar 36*; Shabnam Shakil 3-11) by 8 runs.
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