The first Women’s Premier League in India was a big hit. It got people excited about women’s cricket. Five teams played 22 matches over 23 days. It helped to make women’s cricket more popular in India.
The tournament had some famous international players and also new Indian talents. They showed their skills and became famous for their great performances. Many batters played exciting shots, and some bowlers did amazing things to help their teams win.
Let’s remember the top five best bowling performances from the tournament:
5. Sophie Ecclestone 4/13 (3.3 overs) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore
In a cricket game between UP Warriorz and Royal Challengers Bangalore, RCB chose to bat first. They were doing well, scoring 72 runs with 1 wicket lost after 8 overs. Then, Sophie Ecclestone from UP Warriorz team started bowling. She got the important wicket of Sophie Devine. After that, RCB quickly lost two more wickets and their score dropped to 98 runs with 4 wickets down after 12.2 overs. Ecclestone took more wickets, getting Shreyanka Patil, Renuka Singh, and Sahana Pawar out. RCB finished their batting turn with a score of 138 runs.
In response, UP Warriorz chased the target easily, finishing the game in 13 overs. Alyssa Healy played a great innings, scoring 96 runs without getting out from just 47 balls.
4. Saika Ishaque 4/11 (3.1 overs) vs Gujarat Giants
Saika Ishaque did really well in the WPL. She played for Mumbai and was a key player. She took a lot of wickets and was the second-best at it. In one game against Gujarat Giants, she was amazing. Mumbai had a good score, and when Gujarat started batting, Ishaque bowled really well. She got some important players out quickly. She took a total of four wickets and helped Mumbai win the game by a big margin
3. Kim Garth 5/36 (4 overs) vs UP Warriorz
In Match 3, Gujarat Giants had to defend a score of 169 runs. They started really well when Kim Garth, a bowler from their team, took out three important players from the other team, UP, in her second over. After three overs, UP had only scored 20 runs and lost 3 wickets.
Later in the game, Garth took two more wickets in her 13th over, making it five wickets in total for her in just three overs. She had figures of 5 wickets for 16 runs in three overs, but in her last over, she gave away more runs. By the end of her four overs, she had taken 5 wickets but conceded 36 runs.
Despite Garth’s great performance, Gujarat lost the match because of Grace Harris’s amazing batting. Garth ended the tournament as the top wicket-taker for her team, with a total of 11 wickets in seven matches, averaging 17.54 runs per wicket.
2. Tara Norris 5/29 (4 overs) vs Royal Challengers Bangalore
In the second game of the WPL, Delhi Capitals showed off their excellent batting skills. They scored 223 runs for the loss of two wickets when they batted first against RCB. RCB, on the other hand, had a good lineup of experienced batters. People thought they could chase down the total, but they struggled against the great bowling of Tara Norris.
Norris took some very important wickets of Ellyse Perry, Richa Ghosh, and Heather Knight, which made it hard for RCB to keep up. She finished with 5 wickets for 29 runs in her four overs. This achievement made her the first bowler to take five wickets in a WPL match.
Because of her great performance, Norris was named the Player of the Match. She played a big role in Delhi Capitals’ 60-run win in their first game of the tournament.
1. Marizanne Kapp 5/15 (4 overs) vs Gujarat Giants
In the 9th match of the competition, Gujarat Giants chose to bat first against Delhi Capitals. But their decision didn’t go well because Marizanne Kapp, playing for Delhi Capitals, quickly got Sabbhineni Meghana out on just the second ball of the match. She then got Laura Wolvaaardt and Ashleigh Gardner out in her next over, surprising the Gujarat team. Kapp continued her good performance by getting Harleen Deol and Sushma Verma out in her third and fourth over, completing a five-wicket haul. She ended with 5 wickets for 15 runs in four overs, which was the best bowling performance in the WPL 2023 tournament. Kapp finished as the second-highest wicket-taker for Delhi, taking a total of nine wickets with an average of 22.88 and an economy rate of 5.72, which was the best among bowlers who bowled at least two overs in the tournament.
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