WPL 2025: Who won the WPL match between the Gujarat Giants & Mumbai Indians?
Match number five of the 2025 Women's Premier League (WPL) was played between the Gujarat Giants (GG) and the Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Kotambi Stadium of Vadodara. Both teams are regarded as two of the strongest teams in the competition and everyone was expecting to see a hard fought contest between the two sides.
But, it turned out to be a one sided contest and the Mumbai fan base got the chance to be the happier fan base at the end of the game as the Harmanpreet Kaur-led team secured a comfortable & easy win over the Ashleigh Gardner-led Gujarat Giants by a margin of wickets.
Having won the toss first and elected to field first, it was pretty solid effort from the Mumbai Indians with the ball in hand. They did a fine job of containing the Gujarat Giants batters who were scoring a lot of runs in the last two games and this time around, they weren't able to do anything in front of the supreme bowling effort of MI.
GG had a forgettable start to the innings when they lost Laura Wolvaardt and Beth Mooney cheaply. Despite poor shows at the top of the order, Giants have had Ashleigh Gardner coming down and rescuing them but this time around even the skipper was dismissed for a low score.
Only Harleen Deol stuck for a good chunk of the innings and managed to scrape through a sizeable total.
MI had all of their bowlers chipping in with a wicket contribution, while Parunika Sisodia had a poor debut, the others managed to chip in at regular intervals and do the job.
Hayley Matthews was the pick of the bowlers, managing to add three scalps to her tally, Amelia Kerr and Nat Sciver Brunt picked up two wickets while Shabnim lsmail and Amanjot Kaur picked up one wicket a plece. All in all, it was a complete bowling performance from the inaugural champions.
121 is what Mumbai Indians needed and it turned out to be a walk in the park for the inaugural champions as they easily chased down the total in 16.1 overs at the expense of five wickets. This win also helped the Harmanpreet Kaur-led team to register their first win in the third edition of the Women's Premier League (WPL).
The target was certainly an underpar score given the way the pitch had behaved coming into the contest and the batting unit of MI certainly wanted to end the game quickly.
The bowlers of the Gujarat-based team started the chase on a good note as the duo of Tanuna Kanwar & Ashleigh Gardner began well while Deandra Dottin also bowled a good first over.
MI's Hayley Matthews (17 runs) went berserk in the powerplay, hitting three boundaries before hitting the ball straight into the hands of Harleen Deol at square leg. English batter Nat Sciver-Brunt arrived at the crease at number three and she tried to get involved in a partnership with wicketkeeper batter Yastika Bhatia at the other end but her partner wasn't able to get going and was eventually dismissed by Priya Mishra (2-40).
But, Sciver-Brunt wasn't in the mood to stop and she came out with a positive & aggressive intent, as she played some exceptional shots and used the full depth of the crease in a beautiful manner.
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur (4 runs) , batting at number four, wanted to support her and she hit her very first ball for a four but got out on the very next ball as Kashvee Gautam got the better of her. MI were looking in trouble but Amelia Kerr provided the support to Sciver-Brunt which she needed and the two got involved in a partnership of 45 runs and ensured that the chase of 121 runs became easier. They took their chances from time to time and struck some impressive boundaries to never allow the required rate to climb.
Medium pace bowler Kashvee Gautam though added a temporary hault in the easy looking chase of MI as she sent Kerr back to the pavilion in the 15th over but by then, the damage had already been done. 32-year-old Sciver-Brunt completed her fifty but she couldn't stay till the end and was eventually sent back to the dugout in the 16th over.
But in the end, two boundaries from the duo of Sajeevan Sajana & G Kamalini helped their team cross the finish line with 23 balls to spare. Medium Pacer Kashvee Gautam was the best Gujarat Giants bowler as she ended the game with figures of 2-15 to her name. Priya Mishra & Tanuja Kanwar also chipped in with two & one scalps respectively.
This win helped the Mumbai Indians to register their first win of the season and occupy the 2nd spot in the points table while the Giants on the other hand, suffered their second defeat in the current edition of the WPL and have dropped down to the 3rd spot.