‘Pretty bonkers’: Perry and Molineux win WPL final in India
Five Australians were involved in the Women’s Premier League final, and the atmosphere was electrifying.
Allrounder Ellyse Perry was strutting. Arriving at that confined place she knows inside and out. The batting crease. The WPL final was in the palm of her steady hand and aw, the atmosphere was pretty bonkers, to be honest, as she took her guard, scratched the turf with her right boot, gave the umpire a generous thumbs up and said with a beaming smile, “Thank you!”
Perry is great and getting greater. The unfailingly down-to-earth Australian superstar seemed a shot duck as a T20 player a few years ago but now she’s won the WPL for Royal Challengers Bangalore, alongside her close mates Sophie Molineux and Georgia Wareham, on a momentous night for women’s cricket that drew a positively bonkers capacity crowd of 32, 500 to Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium and pulled an Indian TV audience likely soaring beyond 10 million viewers.
Great and getting greater, Perry was, for the viewing pleasure of the world’s largest and most cricket-bonkers sporting market in prime time on a Sunday evening. She flicked boundaries off her hip in yet another matchwinning occupation of yet another crease and then whipped out a couple of summarising text messages, marvelling at the fickleness of cricketing results, the eternal quest of a player to get things right and the elation of triumphs like these in between the need to absorb the lessons of inevitable defeats.
“You always want to come back and see what sport has in store for you next,” Perry wrote. “I guess the fickleness is what can make it so addictive, but sport isn’t fickle in being a platform for you to be human. To try as hard as you can and put everything into something you believe in. Regardless of whether the result goes your way, one way or another, you win every time.”
Perry’s Challengers won in the best way, on the scoreboard, by eight wickets over Meg Lanning’s Delhi Capitals. The Capitals crashed and burned for 113 before Perry’s exquisite, unbeaten 35 from 37 balls sent the Challengers to 2-115, made her the tournament’s leading run scorer and sealed a chase that became so belatedly tense that aw, it was pretty bonkers at the end there, to be honest. Another engrossing edition of the WPL came to a close in front of a cacophonous full house. The tournament itself is great and getting greater.
Perry’s Indian teammates were in raptures, in tears and in the throes of blissful celebrations after winning with just three balls to spare. “Just another level for us as a team and for women’s cricket,” Perry said. “The support all the teams have had is phenomenal. The standard of cricket has been amazing.”
Molineux was player of the match in the latest chapter of her rousing return from two years of serious injuries. The left-arm tweaker spun it and won it for the Challengers, taking three wickets in one dreamy, championship-clinching over before she threw down the stumps for a run out. Golden arm finished with 3-20 while operating in cahoots with her Australian teammates Perry and Wareham, who were all scheduled to fly to Dhaka on Monday morning for Australia’s white-ball tour of Bangladesh, which begins with an ODI at Sher-E-Bangla National Cricket Stadium on Thursday.
The Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore reign supreme! ðŸ†
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 17, 2024
Presenting before you - Champions of the #TATAWPL 2024 ! 🙌 🙌
Congratulations, #RCB! 👠ðŸ‘#DCvRCB | #Final | @RCBTweets | @mandhana_smritipic.twitter.com/mYbX9qWrUt
Challengers captain Smriti Mandhana called tails at the coin toss. Tails never fails in NSW but it’s no good in India. Lanning opted to bat and the Capitals were rattling along at 0-64 in the eighth over before the indomitable, gum-chewing Molineux’s triple strike sparked an unfathomable collapse. Lanning looked dangerous but fell for a run-a-ball 23.
Molineux was signed by the Challengers despite barely playing cricket for a couple of years. She returned to the Australian side only a month ago. Aw, the risk was pretty bonkers, to be honest, but one might suspect Perry convinced her franchise to roll the dice on her Victorian pal.
“Great match,” Molineux said. “Finals are always funny games. We knew it was going down to the wire. Pretty happy we got over the line. I felt like I was bowing really slow tonight. In tournaments, you have to keep learning from your mistakes and look forward to the next game … this award is special. To be picked by RCB after not playing cricket for a while … it’s an incredible competition and it’s only going from strength to strength. Proud to be a part of it.”
Perry, Molineux and Wareham became the first Australians to win the WPL. No Australians were in Mumbai’s triumphant XI for last year’s inaugural tournament. Virat Kohli’s RCB have never won the IPL and so the franchise was cock-a-hoop after the women’s victory. Wareham said: “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight so might as well take the flight (to Bangladesh) directly. Sophie Molineux has done an amazing job and even tonight, she changed the game for us..”
The player of the series award went to the UP Warriorz’ Deepti Sharma but aw, the judges must have forgotten to watch the finals, to be honest. Deepti made 295 runs at a whopping average of 98.33 and grabbed 10 wickets at 21.7 and yet the Alyssa Healy-led Warriorz failed to reach the playoffs. Perry took the tournament by the scruff of the neck in the final week, conjuring consecutive player-of-the match performances to lift the Challengers into the decider – then strutting and steering them home.
She finished with a chart-topping 347 runs at 69.4. She took seven wickets at 15.57. Her 6-15 against Mumbai Indians is the WPL’s best figures. Her influence was immense. If the WPL was her platform to be human, she was super. Constantly trying as hard as she can. Constantly putting everything into something she believes in: the beauty and challenge of sporting endeavour. Great and getting greater. “We got there in the end,” she said. “Aw, it was pretty bonkers, to be honest!”
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