Meg Lanning's return to action in the Women's Premier League has ended in high drama and some frustration as her Delhi Capitals side were toppled by a last-ball six from Mumbai Indians' debutant Sajeevan Sadana.
Australia's former all-conquering captain, who quit her national team duties last December, could only applaud, along with the rest of the star-studded crowd in Bengaluru, as Sadana, needing five off the last ball, clubbed English spinner Alice Capsey's legspin over long on for the match-winning maximum.
"For her to hit her first ball like that for six was pretty impressive," conceded Lanning, after the first match of the WPL's second edition, which had been launched on Friday with Bollywood's cinema royalty in attendance, culminated in a tale fit for the movies too with Mumbai's unlikely four-wicket win.
The match came down to a dramatic last two overs in which champions Mumbai, still needing 22 off 12 balls to reach their target of 172, somehow managed to scrape over the line in a rematch of last year's final, which the Indians had also won.
The Capitals' new star Australian signing, Annabel Sutherland, was charged with bowling the penultimate over, and it had been a very effective one until her last ball, a full toss, was hoiked for six by Lanning's old international rival Harmanpreet Kaur, India's captain who went to her 50 with the key blow.
With 12 needed off the final over, the Australian skipper threw the ball to her star English allrounder Alice Capsey, who had earlier smashed 75 off 53 balls for the Capitals, and shared in a 64-run stand with Lanning (31 off 25 balls).
Trusting in Capsey's legspin with a longer boundary on the leg side, Lanning's gamble looked set to pay off when Pooja Vastrakar and then Kaur (55 off 34 balls) were eked out in the first five balls.
But allrounder Sajana proved absolutely fearless, hammering a big six to launch ecstatic celebrations in the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The match-winner, ironically, had dropped Capsey during the Capitals' innings to enable Delhi to go on and set a challenging target.
"Generally, it was pretty good for batting, tough for bowlers and tough to defend, but Mumbai bowled extremely well, particularly up front, which was probably the difference in the end," said Lanning.
"We certainly thought we could get the job done with 171 on the board, and we fielded pretty well but unfortunately it wasn't to be today."
