This is the third time now. The four teams in the Women's Premier League fight each other to decide who gets to play in the final against Delhi Capitals. For three seasons, Delhi have topped the table with multiple players standing up for them on different occasions. The side led by former Australian captain, Meg Lanning, has made it to the summit clash of all three editions, only to fall at the final hurdle. Sunday was no different. Neither the way Delhi collapsed nor the result. There was only one difference. This time, Delhi chose to chase the total instead of setting one.
If you had switched off the TV after the powerplay of the first innings, you would have thought that Delhi Capitals had managed to start spectacularly when they gave away just 20 runs in the powerplay. Marizanne Kapp and Shikha Pandey were at their genius best, with the former taking two wickets, including that of Hayley Matthews, who has repeatedly stood up for Mumbai Indians. It was also a well-known fact that if you dismissed either Harmanpreet Kaur or Natalie Sciver-Brunt, Mumbai's lower order, made up of mostly Indian players with relatively less experience, had struggled throughout the tournament. Delhi had only one thing to do and it was not to allow the two experienced batters to form a partnership.
That is where the game slipped. Mumbai allowed Kaur and Sciver-Brunt to build back the innings. Slowly in the initial parts and with the rapid pace once the pair found the ground. As someone who came to the crease after Kapp and Pandey's brilliance, Kaur took over the responsibility to score runs. Even though one could see that she was visibly struggling in the middle a determined captain took it upon herself to score double-digit runs in each over. Delhi's sensational fielding from the powerplay relatively dissolved after it and two experienced campaigners did not need any second invitation to make the most of it.
Sciver-Brunt, who became the first player to cross 1000 runs in the competition, struggled throughout her innings. That was unlike her, given the England international's fluency across all four venues in the edition. Kaur, however, did not lose her tight grip on the innings. Even when Mumbai lost a couple of quick wickets, it never looked like Delhi had gained control of the innings. Amanjot Kaur and Sanskriti Gupta took 13 runs in the final over to take Mumbai to 149 in the first innings. If at this time you would have switched your TV on back again, you were in for a surprise. Delhi had let go of the competitive advantage and even though it felt like they could have chased it down, still the question remained: how did we get here?
The wheels came off way too early for Delhi in the chase. One could have seen that coming from a long time. There was a time in the first innings when Shafali Verma took a simple catch to dismiss Amelia Kerr for two. Given the context of the game, it was one of the biggest moments of the day for Delhi. Verma, Delhi's opener, did not show any emotions. It looked like the shoulders were already dropped, especially for the opener, who has been through an emotional rollercoaster over the last few months. It reflected in her batting in the straightforward chase where she had an opportunity to stamp her authority.
Most of Delhi's batters, other than the openers, got the start but could not convert those scores into big ones. Kaur's experience of leadership in India and the four overseas bowlers at her disposal meant the only escape Delhi would have ever gotten was against Saika Ishaque. Indians' Mumbai specialist. Kapp, for her part, tried to make the game out of it with 40 runs off 26 and Delhi's vice captain Jemimah Rodrigues also chipped in with 30 runs off 21 balls, but it did not change the result as Mumbai bagged their second title in three seasons at the same ground where they lifted a trophy two years ago. For the third time in three years, Lanning's carefully calculated path towards the final led to nowhere.
"The line it is drawn. The curse it is cast. The slow one now. Will later be fast. As the present now. Will later be past. The order is rapidly fadin'. For the times they are a-changin'," Bob Dylan warned back in 1964. It is similar for the Delhi Capitals. With the mega auction coming up next year, who knows if they would be able to retain their core that took them to the finals on three occasions. After today, the times will certainly change for each and every team in the WPL, but even after that this will remembered for the chance Delhi missed. For the third time.
Brief scores: MI 149/7 in 20 ovs (Kaur 66; Kapp 2/11) bt DC 141/9 in 20 ovs (Kapp 40; Sciver-Brunt 3/30)