With an eye on our first Women's Premier League trophy, we entered the Final to face Mumbai Indians at the Brabourne Stadium. Our skipper, Meg Lanning, won the toss and elected to field first.

Marizanne Kapp started the powerplay with a fantastic spell of bowling, where she picked up the wickets of Hayley Matthews and Yastika Bhatia. She bowled four overs straight and ended with outstanding figures of 2/11 with 16 dot balls.

The DC Toli was in full support of us at the Brabourne, cheering our girls to the fullest and inspiring them to fight on.

An 89-run partnership between Nat Sciver-Brunt and Harmanpreet Kaur pushed Mumbai’s score a little forward, but we had some strikes to make a good comeback. N Charani dismissed Sciver for 30, and her fellow left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen had two strikes in an over in the 16th. She picked up Amelia Kerr and Sajeevan Sajana to put us in a commanding position.

Harmanpreet scored a sublime fifty, but Annabel dismissed her with the help of a good catch on the boundary by Kapp for 66. A few strikes towards the end of the innings meant we managed to restrict Mumbai to 149/7.

Our runchase didn’t start well as we lost our openers, Meg Lanning and Shafali Verma within the powerplay. Though Jemimah Rodrigues found some form with the bat and managed to keep us afloat in the run chase, there wasn’t too much support around her as we slipped to 44 for 4. Jemimah’s knock ended on 30, but it was Kapp who picked us up and put us in the position to believe.

Her knock of 40 saw some enterprising shots, which kept us in the hunt for the runs. Her wicket, unfortunately, in the 18th over dented our hopes of winning the tournament.

Niki Prasad, the youngster, once again impressed everyone by scoring a crucial 25, but in the en,d it was a total 8 runs too many for us.

Three finals in three years show what this team has achieved, and it has been another unforgettable season for us. As we wrap up the season, the memories will remain and we will come back stronger next year with our dream and spirit still ignited.

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