With six wickets, Gujarat Giants overcame Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Bengaluru. Led by Smriti Mandhana, the side gained back-to-back wins against Gujarat and Delhi Capitals to launch their campaign in Vadodara but, since beginning to play at home, have lost three games on the trot. On February 27, the team met bottom-placed Gujarat at home, hoping for a victory that was snatched away by a poor batting performance in the contest.
Starting from third place, the side put up a dismal score of 125 runs on the scoreboard. That led to their top-order batsmen being rot down to 25/3, which put pressure on the middle-order boys, who went about drill but kept the ship afloat. Kanika Ahuja was the game’s best fighter, scoring 33 runs, but eventually not bringing in enough runs. The other bowlers took two wickets each for Tanuja Kanwar and Deandra Dottin, but Gujarat had a wonderful day in the field.
Gardner took the center stage in the second innings. She hammered 58 runs off 31 balls, while young Phoebe Litchfield aided from the other end with an unbeaten 30 runs off 21. Thanks to their partnership, Gujarat secured an easy victory to stay alive in the competition. After the game, a proud Gardner credited the win to the performance of her bowlers. She felt if they could have defended more than 200 runs, they would have won their first match against RCB but contentment floods her heart with the performance in Bengaluru.
“The last couple of games did not go our way with bat, it was all about the bowlers today. They stood up really well, and chasing a low total gave us freedom. The first game we probably should have won; we couldn’t defend a total of 200. But this victory was pleasing, nice to win the game and take positivity forward,” was Gardner’s post-match reaction.
“Probably, we need to get better at the powerplay; we lost one wicket in the powerplay tonight. When you have wickets in hand, it really puts you ahead. We lost four wickets in the powerplay in the last two games, which put us on the back foot. We will keep working on being consistent and put more points on the board,” writes Gardner about improvement areas.