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In their opening game, Kiran Navgire opened alongside Meg Lanning. This time, Harleen Deol walked out instead. The logic seemed clear: shield Navgire from Lauren Bell’s brilliance and save her for later. But that logic only holds when you can build a platform to launch from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harleen Deol is not a hitter. Neither is Lanning at the start of an innings. Since 2023, Lanning has struck at just 110 in powerplays.<\/strong> Her game is built around accumulation and batting deep. With Deol, it becomes a tradeoff between wicket preservation and run-scoring. While her average is a solid 31.7 in the powerplay, she scores those runs at a strike rate of 96\u2014slower than run-a-ball.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Even putting that aside, given how RCB’s bowling in the first game went, it probably wasn’t the best idea to send two right-handers out against Bell’s away-swingers and Linsey Smith’s left-arm spin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phoebe Litchfield, who’s opened previously in this format and at the ODI World Cup, also doubles up as a left-handed option. Just by sheer logic, the relative ease of a delivery coming into the left-hander and the added left-right dynamic\u2014it would have been enough to justify sending her out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if we add the numbers since 2023, it further drives the point home. Litchfield averages 68 and strikes at 165.9 against left-arm spinners in the T20 powerplay<\/strong>. She’s also been dismissed just once by them in 14 innings.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking at the result of the powerplay, it makes sense why UPW managed just 36. In fact, if not for Deol being dismissed and Litchfield hitting a couple of boundaries, they might have had an even slower start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another aspect of the pressure being built was a lack of strike rotation. RCB were brilliant in the field\u2014not just with their catching, but with their ground fielding. They cut off singles, allowing bowlers like Shreyanka Patil and even Linsey Smith to settle into a rhythm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the end of six overs, UPW had already faced 18 dot balls.<\/strong> That’s three overs of sitting in the batting crease without scoring a run. Frustration was inevitable, given the openers struggled to hit boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While UPW looked in a decent spot at the end of the powerplay, the underlying issue was glaring: they were either hitting boundaries (rarely) or getting nothing. That became fatal as the wickets began to tumble.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Lanning was out trying to accelerate against Shreyanka Patil, who’s now dismissed her three out of three times. Sehrawat and Navgire made the same mistakes\u2014trying to force the pace without getting a feel for the pitch. Litchfield played a poor shot when she was looking good and just needed to stay in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At 50 for 5 in 8.2 overs, UPW were always going to be playing catch-up.<\/strong> It will sting even more, given how well they recovered from there, scoring 87 off the last 10 overs, without losing another wicket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I mean that with the utmost respect. Grace Harris’s scintillating 85 off 40<\/strong> was a sight to behold. It was carnage right from the get-go, but also really, really smart cricket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It isn’t without reason that she’s a feared batter. Her incredibly stable base and raw strength make her an absolute beast<\/strong>. This was also evident when she took on pretty much every bowler, playing some of her iconic swats to different parts of the ground, accessing some rather unorthodox parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An incredible stat is how legside-oriented her game was. She scored nearly 86% of all runs tonight on the legside<\/strong>. And what makes this outrageous is that UPW did not even really bowl as much on her leg stump. If you look at the pitchmap below, it in no way justifies Harris tonking so many in the long on to square leg region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all the chatter around RCB’s balance and playing XIs, they’ve gone 2 out of 2 games and clearly have much room for improvement. But for now, they’ll be supremely pleased with Grace Harris because what the hell was that blitzkrieg?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Data from Women’s T20 Batting App using Himanish Ganjoo’s T20 cricket BBB database<\/a> up until October 2025<\/em>, Arnav Jain’s fielding toolkit<\/a>, Cricmetric<\/a>, Cricket By JB’s WPL analyses<\/a> & the Broadcast<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Want to learn more about WPL stars, their numbers and what they’re good at? Try out our WPL Quiz game \ud83d\udd3d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\ud83c\udfcf Nothing “Grace”-ful about that knock<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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