Finally the dream come true for Royal Challengers Bangalore. This was the first time the RCB franchise won a trophy. Smriti Mandhana won the Women's Premier League title for the first time. Virat Kohli could not win the IPL title in the last 16 seasons. But, it was during Smriti's leadership that RCB achieved that success in the Women's Premier League season. Won the final against Delhi Capitals by 8 wickets.
Delhi Capitals won the toss and elected to bat first. Although they got off to a good start, Delhi pushed themselves to the bottom by losing one wicket after another. Captain Meg Lanning and Shefali Verma came out to open for Delhi Capitals in this final match. Shefali started playing from the beginning. He was accompanied by Meg Lanning. Delhi Capitals reached the 50 over mark in just 4.5 overs.
At one point, Delhi Capitals scored 64 runs without a wicket. It was at such a time that Royal Challengers Bangalore team captain Smriti Mandhana handed over the ball to Sophie Molyneux, the 'trump card' of the team. And from this point the color of the match changed completely. Where it looked like Delhi Capitals were in the driver's seat in the previous over, the Molineux over changed all that thinking. Although not a hat-trick, he took three big wickets in the same over. Delhi's top order virtually collapsed as Shefali Verma (44), Jemima Rodrigues (0) and Alice Capsey (0) returned. After that they could not turn back.
However, Shreyanka Patil stood out for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the final match. He single-handedly took four wickets. He gave only 12 runs in 3.3 overs. Shreyanka's list of victims includes Meg Lanning (23), Minnu Mani (5), Arundhati Reddy (10) and Tanya Bhatia (0). Besides, Asha Sobhana took two wickets. He practically broke Delhi's backbone with the wickets of Marijan Cup and Jess Jonasson in the middle overs. And Radha Yadav was run out after scoring 12 runs off 9 balls. Finally, Delhi Capitals were bowled out for 113 runs in 18.3 overs.
Then Royal Challengers Bangalore came to bat. Smriti did not have a big run target in front of them to win. So Sophie Devine and Smriti Mandhana started batting slowly from the beginning. They made a pair of 49 runs in the opening partnership. But Sophie got out LBW to Shikha Pandey in 8.1 overs. He scored 32 runs off 27 balls. He has five boundaries and one over boundary in this innings. Ellis Perry stepped in to bat when he returned. Smriti Mandhana also returned with 31 runs from 39 balls. However, Royal Challengers Bangalore had no trouble winning. In the end they won the final match by 8 wickets.
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