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Delhi Capitals (DC) prevailed in a thriller against Mumbai Indians in their opening match of the Women's Premier League (WPL 2025). With two required off the final delivery, Arundhati Reddy held her nerve to hit the winning runs.
This match had the ebb and flow of the tournament opener between these two sides last season, but on that occasion, it was MI who got the points.
Looking back at the game, pacer Shikha Pandey, who finished with 2/14, said that this was a complete team effort and her side did well despite superstars like Marizanne Kapp and Jonassen missing from the XI.
"Last time the tournament opener was pretty much a similar game, it's just that we ended up on the wrong side of the result and this time we are on the right side of the result but the thing that's really heartening is we are still not full strength, and we still have some superstars who couldn't play today," Pandey said at the post-match press conference.
"This is really nice also for Niki [Prasad] playing her first high-intensity game for her to take us through at least take us closer. It was really nice. It was probably, I can call this a complete team effort."
Speaking of her spell, Pandey said that given the wicket was flat, she had to be on the money right from the start,
"Oh, I had fun. I knew that whatever magic I had to do with the new ball had to be done in the first few overs because we followed the game last night, and it's gonna be a flat wicket, so I was just trying to take wickets first up, and yeah, worked today. Might not work on many other days but I'm happy to have contributed," she said.
She also revealed she has been working on swinging the ball off her hand, which is crucial especially in the early stage of the innings.
"A huge part of it is to get wickets first up, and with the new ball, the ball has to swing. I kind of tell myself that I should be able to swing the ball off the hand as well, so that's something that I've been working on, so yeah, that was really nice," the 35-year-old said.
DC will hope to take this confidence against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), who they face on February 17 (Monday) at the same venue.
