WPL: Intense fight for remaining playoff spots beckons

Red-hot team: Mumbai Indians has qualified for playoffs with three games to spare.
| Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

A fortnight has passed since the Women’s Premier League got off to an explosive start, with Harmanpreet Kaur playing a blinder at Navi Mumbai’s D.Y. Patil Stadium. Mumbai Indians won the opening match against Gujarat Giants by a huge margin.

MI is still unbeaten, having won five matches on the trot. It is the only team to have ensured a place in the playoffs, and it did that with three matches still in hand.

After a day’s break, the WPL resumes on Saturday, with all the other teams theoretically having chances of claiming one of the two remaining playoffs spots. Of them, Delhi Capitals, despite its loss to Gujarat Giants in a low-scoring, close encounter on Thursday, looks the likeliest to make the knockout stage, having won four matches.

Royal Challengers Bangalore, on the other hand, will not only need to win both its remaining games but the other matches also will have to go its way. A tall order indeed for a side that shone the brightest at the auction but has been able to win only one game, that too after losing the first five.

UP Warriorz and Giants have won two games each, but the former has played a game less. The remaining fixtures in the league phase should throw up interesting cricket, with wickets at both the grounds, the Brabourne and the D.Y. Patil, increasingly becoming more sporting, from the absolute roads they were at the beginning.

Saturday’s matches: Mumbai Indians vs UP Warrioz, 3.30 p.m.; Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Gujarat Giants 7.30 p.m.