Kiran Navgire and Alyssa Healy unleashed a remarkable assault on Mumbai Indians bowlers to power UP Warriorz to a seven-wicket win in their Women’s Premier League match here on Wednesday.
Navigre (57 off 31 balls) and Healy (33 off 29 balls) added 94 runs in an opening stand in just 9.1 overs as the Warriorz eased past the 162-run target in 16.3 overs to hand them their first victory of the season.
Mumbai’s batting suffered in the absence of skipper and in-form batter Harmanpreet Kaur, who is nursing a niggle, as a laboured 55 off 47 balls from Hayley Matthews guided them to 161 for six.
It was a competitive total but the Mumbai bowlers would not have suspected a carnage like the one by Navigre and Healy.
Navigre, who is the only Indian women’s batter to score a 150-plus score in senior T20s, fully exploited her promotion as opener, as Mumbai also suffered from the injury-enforced absence of lead pacer Shabnim Ismail.
Earlier, Mumbai made a sedate start to their innings and had to wait till the fourth over for the first four.
Yastika Bhatia (26 off 22) gave Mumbai the much-needed acceleration when the left-hander hammered 18 runs off left-arm pacer Anjali Sarvani through a sequence of three fours and a six.
Matthews too tried to up the tempo and found the occasional big hits amid a slew of mis-timed shots. Her four and six off successive balls off left-arm spinner Gayakwad were a reminder to her power and timing when in flow.
Matthews, who was dropped on 43 by Deepti Sharma, reached her fifty in 44 balls.
