Mumbai Indians finally loses their first match of WPL 2023 . It was finally UP Warriorz who won a low scoring cliff hanger by 5 wickets with only 3 balls to go . Batting first Mumbai scored only 127 in 20 overs and UP Warriorz chased down the score in a tense finish to win by 5 wickets .
Losing the toss and batting first , Mumbai Indians had a bit of struggle against the UP Warriorz spinners . Yastika(7) could not pierce the field as in the previous games and was bowled by Anjali Shravani trying to improvise . Hayley Mathews looked in good touch and played some bold shots while Sciver (5) went cheaply lbw to Ecclestone. Finally Mathews (35) in trying to force the pace lost her wicket to Ecclestone.
Harmanpreet looked in great nick and was looking dangerous till she was well caught at deep midwicket boundary off Deepti for a crisp 25 . Meanwhile Amelia Kerr (3) was out cheaply .
Harmanpreet ‘s wicket triggered a collapse as lower order wickets kept falling which showed that Mumbai Indians have a top heavy batting order and a weak and untested lower order . The UP spinners ran amok as wickets fell in clumps but Issy Wong played some brave shots to score an invaluable 32 runs off 19 balls to almost singlehandedly carried the lower order and take the team to 127 in 20 overs . Deepti Sharma produced two great run outs in the last over .
Also read : NZ V SL 2ND TEST : WILLIAMSON , NICHOLLS PILE ON THE RUNS & AGONY ON SRI LANKA
For UP Warriorz, Ecclestone took 3 wickets while Deepti and Rajaswari Gayakward took 2 wickets each .
In reply , UP Warriorz had a roller coaster chase . Devika Vaidya(1) was brilliantly caught by Harmanpreet in the slips off Mathews but Healy was dropped off two sitters down deep square leg and point before Wong got her lbw for 8 .
However Tahlia Grath was dropped by Yastika on the next ball which proved very costly for Mumbai as McGrath batted superbly to score 38 off 25 which pulled down the asking rate for UP. Yastika ,however made amends with a brilliant one handed leg side catch to dismiss a dangerous Navgire (12) who tried to pull a short ball from Sciver .
Tahlia finally was caught and bowled by Amelia Kerr which brought Grace Harris and Deepti Sharma together .
Harris was all along biding her time but now started to play explosive shots and was looking ominous when Amelia Kerr had her caught well by Wong at long on for 39 off 28 balls to open up the game for Mumbai again .
However , player of the match Deepti (13 not out) & Ecclestone (16 notout) batted sensibly to carry UP through the tense final 2 overs and Ecclestone finally hit a straight field six off Wong with 3 balls remaining to get crucial 2 points for the Warrioz