3 things that went wrong for UP Warriorz in WPL 2023
While the Mumbai Indians and the Delhi Capitals stole the headlines, the UP Warriorz quitely put up a brilliant showing in the inaugural Women's Premier League.
The Alyssa Healy-led franchise made it past the group stage after winning four of their eight games. They finished third in the points table and were up against the Mumbai Indians in the eliminator last night.
However, they were absolutely demolished by Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. yesterday, beating them by 72 runs. Batting first, MI scored 182 and in reply, the Warriors could only notch up 110 runs. The defeat has ended the Warriorz's dream of winning the WPL but they can be mighty proud of the way they performed over the course of the tournament.
Here, we look at three things that went wrong for the franchise in WPL 2023.
3 things that went wrong for UP Warriorz in WPL 2023
#1 Inconsistency in batting
While they have not had a poor tournament with the bat, consistency was found lacking. UP Warriorz have lost three games in the tournament, including the eliminator due to some sub-standard batting. Even the group-stage game that they won against Mumbai Indians could have gone the other way because of the batters.
While Alyssa Healy and Tahlia McGrath had good seasons, the Indian contingent struggled and that was a huge reason for the team's downfall.
#2 Selection Blunders
Grace Harris was the team's third-highest run-scorer over the course of the tournament, despite having played only six of the total nine games that UP Warriorz played.
She scored 230 runs in five innings at a sensational strike-rate of 165.46. She proved to be an out-and-out match winner in the games that she featured in.
Despite her brilliant form, she was left out of the playing 11 on three occasions and that was surely not the wisest of calls.
#3 Deepti Sharma's form
Deepti Sharma had a terrible season as she was only able to score 90 runs over the course of the tournament, that too, at a strike-rate of below 100. Sharma was the designated vice-captain and one of the most important players of the side but failed to produce the goods for her team.
With the ball, she could only pick up nine wickets and was quite expensive, conceding runs at almost nine per over. She was nowhere close to her best and that cost her side big time.