Bombay Indians 129 for 6 (Kerr 31*, Bhatia 30, Ahuja 2-5) defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore 125 for 9 (Ghosh 29, Perry 29, Kerr 3-22, Sciver-Brunt 2-24, Wong 2-26) by four wickets
Amelia Kerr he had figures of 3 for 11 after his first three overs against Royal Challengers Bangalore and could easily have had a fourth, but Issy Wong brought down the hard-hitting Richa Ghosh in Kerr’s final over.
Exactly five balls later, Wong had the ball, Kerr was in long position, Ghosh missed another shot, and Kerr made the catch several yards inside the boundary line. Wong’s grateful smile at Kerr said it all.
Kerr has stepped up for the Mumbai Indians late in the league stage, when the pitches started to tire and help the spinners, and when Mumbai’s best spinner in the early stages, Saika Ishaque, has been unable to continue their form from the first five games.
Worryingly for them, Mumbai reached their last league match after two defeats, both at the DY Patil Stadium, where they scored just 109 of 8 and 127 on aggregate against capitals of delhi and UP Warriorz respectively. Ishaque, who had picked 12 wickets earlier, went wicketless at both. It could be due to his lack of experience, or just his usual style of bowling – he was bowling largely in the 85-90km/h range when another left-arm player, UP Warriorz’s Sophie Ecclestone, slowed down to pick 3 out of 15 while bowling. she out of mumbai for 127 few days ago.
On Tuesday, Ishaque started with flat deliveries, around the 85-88kph mark, and had no success against front-row hitters.
Enter Kerr in the seventh, when Smriti Mandhana had started to open up after collecting caps from fast pitchers. Kerr rounded the wicket and slowed one to 77.6kph so Mandhana came back and missed the wicketkeeper with a leading edge.
Throwing the ball up is one of Kerr’s strengths anyway, and the lack of pace on this pitch was going to worry hitters as they tried to generate power for big hits. In his next over, Kerr flew one even further, at 74.3km/h, and with the Royal Challengers desperate for runs after trailing to 59 for 2 in the 11 over, Heather Knight tried to clear the long limit, but was comfortably trapped within a few meters. inside the rope by 12.
“I felt it was going well at the start of my innings reasonably positively and I wanted to continue because the overs were running out and we needed some caps,” Knight said later in the press conference. “I probably picked the wrong ball when I was going to do a slow sweep and I was a little further away, and I tried to go to the vision screen.
“She (Kerr) bowled very well and she’s a world-class bowler and she varies her pace very well, and she also spins the ball both ways. It wasn’t the easiest turf, it was a little slow, definitely tough.” get going as a hitter. That’s the kind of wicket where you want to hit 140 to make it competitive and give your bowlers something to play on.”
Kerr is just 22 years old, but has been on the international stage for six years after making his New Zealand debut at the age of 16. At an age where most people have no idea what to do with their lives, Kerr had fired Meg Lanning. she with the first ball she bowled to the captain of Australia in international cricket. It could be said that Lanning still hasn’t found a way to dominate Kerr, because last month, Kerr had cheated on Lanning with a googly in the T20 World Cup.
On Tuesday, she unleashed her misleading error again when Kanika Ahuja came out in the fifteenth. Kerr threw the left-hand batter so slow and wide that Ahuja didn’t even bother trying to gain ground after missing with his big swing. Kerr’s post-hit celebration was a steely glare at Ahuja, as if to say, “this googly gets the best in the business, you better not try to go after him.”
“When I first got here, I was thinking, ‘Ten over is a good day.’ So the pitching is slowing down a little bit and it’s going around more,” Kerr said at the postgame presentation. “But some world-class hitters are hitting in this competition on pretty good wickets with short caps and they can hit the ball very far. It’s about trying to deny that and during the tournament I’ve come up with different plans that give me the best option to have success.”
Kerr returned for the last time in death, nearly taking her fourth wicket as well, before she herself took the catch from Ghosh. She and she then dove to the left of her as she ran four balls later to save two runs, adding an Ellyse Perry-like halo to the overall image of her.
And this all came long after her first big effort on the pitch that day, when she was without Wellington teammate Sophie Devine, who had shot 99 of 36 three days ago, even if the shot went to what looked like evil. ends initially, with Devine and Mandhana almost coming face to face.
About three hours later, Kerr had taken Mumbai from a slightly worrying 73 for 4 to the finish line by scoring on an unbeaten 31 for 27. He brought Mandhana to the limit of fine leg when Mumbai needed six to win from 24 balls and he would also have scored the winning runs had Mandhana not bowled five wide later in the same over.
