Ash Gardner has demonstrated why she's being paid the big rupees in India's Women's Premier League as she helped spin the league's 'Team Australia' to their first win of the tournament.
The Indigenous star all-rounder, who was the joint-biggest overseas buy at the WPL auction at a cool $558,000, hadn't exactly set the event alive in her first two matches for Gujarat Giants.
But Gardner took two key wickets in her final two overs and checked Royal Challengers Bangalore's run-chase on Wednesday to give a Giants side featuring three Australian stars a badly-needed maiden win by 11 runs at Mumbai's Brabourne Stadium.
The victory was achieved without another Australian star Beth Mooney, who has now been ruled out for the tournament after picking up a knee injury in their first match last weekend.
World Cup-final player of the match Mooney has been replaced in the Giants' line-up by South African Laura Wolvaardt .
In Mooney's absence, though, her Aussie colleagues stepped up, with Gardner taking 3-31 off her four overs and Annabel Sutherland, while getting carted around for 56 off her four, also picking up two big scalps as RCB chased the Giants' 7-201.
It was the fourth time in six WPL matches that the team batting first had amassed more than 200, with England Sophia Dunkley hammering 65 off 28 balls and India's Harleen Diol 67 off 45.
Though she was unlucky with a couple of dismissal near-misses, RCB's Aussie great Ellyse Perry got tonked for 43 off her four overs - including 19 off her final over - while her international pace bowling compatriot Megan Schutt finally took her first wicket of the tournament, finishing with 1-26 off three overs.
With the bat, Perry looked well set to launch an assault in the chase but eventually succumbed for 32 after giving a simple catch to short third.
RCB's captain Smriti Mandhana, the highest-paid player in the league, also again flattered to deceive, getting out for 18 off 14.
RCB's New Zealand opener Sophie Devine was the last hope as she reached 66 off 45 balls, but she smacked a Sutherland full toss straight into long-on's hands as her side remain winless in the competition.
