WPL 2023: Gujarat Giants stunned high-flying Delhi Capitals in a thriller of a match after the brilliance of Gardner & Wolvaardt

Gujarat Giants finally got their second victory of the WPL 2023 campaign after they beat Delhi Capitals in an entertaining match at the Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai. Ashleigh Gardner's all-round performance & Laura Wolvaardt's batting brilliance did the job to restrict Delhi Capitals' run. Meg planning & co faced their second defeat of the campaign, although they are sitting comfortably in the 2nd position of the points table. Gujarat Giants will gain confidence from a big win like this & the road to the playoffs would be interesting from here.

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WPL 2023: Delhi Capitals vs Gujarat Giants Match Report

Delhi Capitals struggled in Batting for the second time in the campaign after their face-off against Mumbai Indians. Meg Lanning started well in the chase but she lost her wicket early with Shafali & Gujarat got the chance to fight back after putting up an average Total. Gujarat Giants were also struggling at first as Sophia Dunkley lost her wicket to Marizanne Kapp. Harleen Deol is in fine form but she wasn't able to boost her inning which Gujarat needed to score a big total. Their replacement Laura Wolvaardt performed big-time alongside Ashleigh Gardner who is also in great form. She either contributed with wickets or scored important runs.

On the other side Delhi Capitals faced their second loss and the two defeats they faced, were for batting. Their batting is their main potential & when that fell down, Delhi also faced defeats. Gujarat Giants will get a huge boost to their confidence for the upcoming matches as they beat the team who are sitting on the second of the table.

Gujarat Giants' Batting:

Delhi Capitals won the toss & decided to bowl first. Gujarat Giants lost the wicket of Sophia Dunkley who returned to the dugout for only 4 runs. Laura Wolvaardt played a brilliant inning of 57 runs in 45 deliveries with 6 fours & a six. Harleen Deol (31) who is in fine form once again holds herself on the crease to help Laura with singles & doubles. Although she failed to change gears when the team needed to put up a good total, she did a decent job as a batter who always need support from the other side of the pitch. Harleen simply did that but the showstopper was Ashleigh Gardner. She scored her maiden half-century with 9 fours and Gujarat Giants put up a total of 147 runs after losing 4 wickets.

Delhi Capitals' Run Chase:

Delhi capitals lost both the openers very early. Skipper Meg Lanning was good but not good enough to settle in. Opposition skipper Sneh Rana removed her from the crease. Tanuja Kanwar claimed the wicket of Shafali Verma who is in brilliant form at the moment. This brings Alice Capsey to the pitch who decided to counter-attack but after a short cameo of 22 runs she got run out from a brilliant through of Sophia Dunkley. Capitals faced another blow as Jemimah lost her wicket for just 1 run against the inform Kim Garth.

Jess Jonassen & Tania Bhatia also departed early as Ashleigh Gardner & Harleen Deol opened their shop. A slight light of hope was still there with the name of Marizanne Kapp. She looked quite brilliant but this was just not the right day for Delhi as Kapp lost her wicket for 36 runs by a run-out. Arundhati Reddy played a short cameo but she was not enough to chase the total as Delhi Capitals got all out for 136 runs around 18.4 overs.

Gujarat Giants registered a huge victory, a much-needed victory from their point of view as they were falling behind from the playoffs. Now It has become more interesting after Delhi's point drops. Bangalore got their first victory, Gujarat got their second and UP Warriorz are already in contention.