Another dismal season for the UP Warriorz as the Delhi Capitals made not-so-quick work of a modest total to secure a spot in the playoffs.
🦆 Lanning’s golden duck was always too big a void to fill
UP Warriorz have been the leaders of preserving their wickets in the powerplay this WPL. Before tonight, they averaged 49 runs per wicket in the powerplay while going at a strike rate of 117.4, with just 6 dismissals across their 7 games.
Of all teams in the WPL, UP Warriorz were the only side to have not lost 10 or more wickets in the powerplay phase collectively. A large reason for that solidity up top has been their captain opening the innings: Meg Lanning.
It’s almost ironic because they’ve had their fair share of struggles—trying out a bunch of opening combinations and not finding consistency—but still managing to pull through the powerplay in some odd manner.
Tonight, however, for the first time in WPL history and only for the second time in her 290-innings-long T20 career, Meg Lanning found herself dismissed for a golden duck. Firstly, that’s a freakish stat. Secondly, Lanning’s existence at the crease is so important that the moment she departed, UP were already way behind, especially with Phoebe Litchfield no longer in the mix.
Beyond these two factors, Lanning is also incredibly consistent and an important force to reckon with. Before tonight, Lanning was only dismissed three times for a score below 10 in her entire WPL career. This season too, her lowest score was 14 and barring 2 innings, she crossed 25 on every occasion. She eventually scored 248 runs in her 8 outings, averaging 31 with a strike rate of 125.2, becoming the tournament’s fourth-highest run-getter.
But it’s outside her own batting numbers that she becomes such an important cog in this batting order. Lanning has been at the crease for a whopping 535 runs in terms of partnerships she’s been involved in. To put that into context, that’s 46.5% of all the runs UP Warriorz have scored in their campaign this season.
So even if Lanning didn’t get you a half-century or a big score, she was able to bat through in a manner that let other batters bat around her and take the attack to the opposition. Today, when Lanning found herself heading back to the pavilion off the very first ball, it meant the Capitals also had two open ends to grab wickets, which they gleefully did.
UP Warriorz eventually ended their powerplay at 36 for 3, a point from where any kind of return is tough. And yet they managed to push the Capitals for most of the second half of that game. But the damage was done early. Without Lanning, UP’s solidity vanished. And that fragility masked for so long by her presence was exposed brutally.
Data from Women’s T20 Batting App using Himanish Ganjoo’s T20 cricket BBB database up until October 2025, Arnav Jain’s fielding toolkit, Cricmetric, Cricket By JB’s WPL analyses & the Broadcast.
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