WPL 2025: "The target was only 150. Should have got it", says Sourav Ganguly

Former India men’s captain Sourav Ganguly was upset while standing by the boundary line awaiting the final presentation to begin following Delhi Capitals’ eight-run defeat to Mumbai Indians in the Women’s Premier League title clash at the Brabourne Stadium on Saturday night.

An infamous hat-trick

Three finals in three WPL editions and DC have achieved an infamous hat-trick, finishing second best to MI in 2023 and 2025, and to Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2024. “Three in a row. The target was only 150. [We] should have got it,” Ganguly, Director of Cricket of JSW Group that co-owns DC, told mid-day, sounding dejected and still ruing at the opportunity lost to be third-time lucky. “We have chased twice before [against Mumbai Indians] this season. If you gave them [MI] the 150-run target, they’d have got it,” he said.

Sourav Ganguly

It was a match DC ought to have won. DC head coach Jonathan Batty said his team did well to restrict MI to 149 and the target was achievable. He told the media post-match: “We’ve had three great seasons to finish top of the table, three years running. We’ve played some amazing cricket. Everyone’s hurting a huge amount at the moment and I think 99 per cent of the time you’d back yourself to chase 150 on that wicket.

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“Maybe the occasion of the final just got to the players. Full credit to Mumbai Indians for the way they bowled to defend that total. They executed their skills really, really well, made it really hard for us as we never got ahead of the chase. We were in the game the whole way through and just couldn’t quite get over the line at the end.”

Jonathan Batty

The Englishman denied that the players had any mental block in the finals, losing three in a row. “You look at how we performed with the ball and in the field in that first half to keep them to 149. Again, on that wicket, you’ve seen what’s happened through the week with the elimination and the other games here. We were expecting probably 180 to be a par score, so we were really, really pleased with that. So, the players were very much up for it. I don’t think it was a mental block at all, but it’s just full credit to the opposition. They outplayed us and quite rightly deserve to win,” Batty said.

Tense final moments

Triumphant MI head coach Charlotte Edwards said there were some tense moments when Marizanne Kapp kept DC in the hunt with her partnership with Niki Prasad for the seventh wicket, worth 40 in 29 balls. That brought down the required run-rate to within reach as DC needed 29 in 18 deliveries. Kapp, however, fell to a catch in the deep in the 18th over bowled by Natalie Sciver-Brunt.

Edwards said: “I always felt there was another turn in the game at that point, but Marizanne played brilliantly and she’s won many finals herself, certainly two against me in The Hundred [2021 and 2022]. So, I was a bit wary, but when Nat Sciver-Brunt has the ball in her hand, anything can happen. That [Kapp’s] was a crucial wicket, caught at deep mid-off. You still don’t think the game’s won. Every team in this tournament bat very deep and can hit sixes right to the very end. We knew we were in for a tough couple of overs there and thankfully, we managed to see it through and get our second WPL title.”