Last Updated: March 05, 2023, 19:39 IST
WPL 2023: Delhi Capitals’ Tara Norris picked up five wickets (BCCI)
Left-arm pacer Tara Norris became the first-ever bowler to pick a five-wicket haul in the inaugural Women’s Premier League
Associate player and USA pacer Tara Norris became the first player to pick a five-wicket haul in the Women’s Premier League as Delhi Capital defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by 60 runs.
DC’s Norris dislodged the RCB middle order, picking up the wickets of Ellyse Perry, Disha Kasat, Richa Ghosh, Heather Knight and Kanika Ahuja as they failed in their chase.
WPL 2023: RCB v DC – Highlights | Match Report
At the post-match presentation, Norris said that she was just happy to be a part of the WPL.
“Delighted. Meg and Shafali started well with the bat and the bowlers executed their plans. It is amazing to be here and delighted with the win. The first wicket is pretty special and will definitely take that,” Tara Norris said, after ending with 5/29 from her four overs.
Bangalore’s chase began with Smriti Mandhana taking two fours, including a sweetly-timed pick-up shot, and a six off Marizanne Kapp in the second over. From the other end, Sophie Devine took advantage of the width coming from Shikha Pandey to hit three boundaries in the third over.
Smriti nailed the slog-sweep and then got an outside edge on an attempted slog to take back-to-back fours off Jess Jonassen in the fourth over. The opening stand was broken by Alice Capsey, when Sophie reached out to go over mid-of, but Shafali Verma dived across to complete a stunning catch.
In her next over, Alice took out Smriti as her half-hearted shot was caught easily by short fine leg. Ellyse Perry and Disha Kasat tried injecting some momentum in the chase by hitting five fours, including the former taking a hat-trick of boundaries off Radha Yadav, in the tenth over.
But Tara’s introduction got the match firmly in Delhi’s favour. In her first over, she got Ellyse to chop on to her stumps. Two balls later, she got Disha to pull straight to deep backward square leg.
In her next over, Tara had Richa Ghosh mistiming the loft to long-on and Kanika Ahuja slicing straight to short third man to be on the cusp of taking a hat-trick. Though she didn’t get the hat-trick, Delhi had another scalp when Asha Shobana top-edged to short fine leg off Shikha.
Heather Knight and Megan Schutt slammed five fours and two sixes in the 54-run partnership off 28 balls for the eighth wicket. But Tara ended the stand by having Heather loft to extra cover to pick the first five-wicket haul of the tournament. Megan ended the innings with back-to-back fours, but it wasn’t enough for them to stop Delhi from a thumping win.
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