UP Warriorz after a couple of losses finally registered their first victory in the 2025 edition of the WPL as they made short work of the Delhi Capitals in the reverse fixture. Chinelle Henry, the West Indies all-rounder, change the complexion of the game with a joint-fastest fifty in WPL history.
UP Warriorz finally got off the mark in the 2025 edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) with a solid win against the two-time finalists Delhi Capitals in Bengaluru on Saturday, February 22 to get their first points on the board. It was a game of two halves for either side as at 109/7 after 15 overs, a similar tale seemed to be unfolding for the UP Warriorz with the top-order and the big guns faltering yet again before Chinelle Henry literally provided a booster shot to the arm with a smacking 18-ball half-century to turn the tide in her side’s favour.
Henry’s belligerent 23-ball 62 left Delhi Capitals stunned, bewildered as she single-handedly snatched all the momentum from the bowling side, who at one point might have been looking at a target around 140-150 and now were suddenly chasing something close to 180. The Capitals were under pressure and it showed from the first over Meg Lanning and Shafali Verma played. Even though the duo crossed 1,000 runs as a pair in the WPL, the free-flowing nature of their partnership was missing, the pressure was palpable and young Kranti Goud got the former Australian captain, a wicket she would remember for a long long time.
The powerplay was slow, the rebuilding took ages and the rescue act kept getting delayed with wickets falling at regular intervals. Jemimah Rodrigues struck an impressive fifty as she not only held one end but kept the Capitals’ hopes alive somewhat. After the big guns Marizanne Kapp and Annabel Sutherland failed, it was down to Niki Prasad and Shikha Pandey to provide some respectability to the chase.
They died trying as Prasad gave Henry a tasted of her own medicine with a six and a couple of fours in the 17th over before out of nowhere, Grace Harris picked up a hat-trick to bring the game to a premature end. Harris became only the third bowler in WPL history to take a hat-trick and second one for the UP Warriorz after Deepti Sharma last year, against the same opponent. England’s Issy Wong was the first one to do it in the inaugural edition of the WPL.
Players to take a hat-trick in WPL
- Issy Wong (MI vs UPW) – Navi Mumbai, 2023 (Kiran Navgire, Simran Shaikh, Sophie Ecclestone)
- Deepti Sharma (UPW vs DC) – Delhi, 2024 (Meg Lanning, Annabel Sutherland, Arundhati Reddy)
- Grace Harris (UPW vs DC) – Bengaluru, 2024 (Niki Prasad, Arundhati Reddy, Minnu Mani)
Henry was named the Player of the Match as apart from the runs, she bowled four overs and also picked a crucial wicket of veteran South African all-rounder Kapp.
It is the second defeat for the Capitals in four matches and their campaign is yet to take a full flight. Having lost the finals in the last two seasons, it seemed like this one was going to be theirs with a couple of quality additions in keeper-batter Sarah Bryce and a lower-order local finisher in Niki Prasad. However, the things haven’t worked the way they would have liked and would need to wrestle the momentum back to get amongst wins as RCB and Mumbai Indians seem to have found their formula yet again after the last season.