Follow UsGujarat Giants' (GG) Women's Premier League (WPL) season came to an end following their 47-run defeat at the hands of Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Eliminator in Mumbai. However, it could have panned out differently if one of two things had happened. One, had they hung on to their catches, and two, had they opted to bat first, given that the team batting first won both the games at the Brabourne Stadium this season.
"We may have misread it slightly. We felt the wicket had a bit of tackiness when we saw it before the toss," GG head coach Michael Klinger said.
"We thought it may have done a bit with the new ball in the first innings, or held a bit or spun a bit. But, that wasn't the case, it played well pretty well. Tosses in T20 games don't win you games. It was soaking wet in the second half, so probably would have been better off bowling first than second. But when you are defending a 200-plus score, you are putting a lot of pressure on the batting group, and that's how we lost most of our wickets."
Another aspect that went against the Giants was their poor catching. Nat Sciver-Brunt and Hayley Matthews put on a gigantic 133-run stand for the second wicket that took the game away from the Giants. However, it could have been different had their catches been held.
"That [GG's poor fielding] was obvious for all to see. And I thought that the Mumbai Indians' fielding was fantastic. They would have said the other night when they lost to RCB that they didn't field well so it does happen," Klinger said.
"We would have liked to put in a better performance in the field because, like I said, there was about a 40 runs swing there, -20 to us and +20 to them. We lost by 47 runs, so sometimes that can be a big difference in the game."
Even before the toss, GG suffered a massive blow as Deandra Dottin was out after she injured her knee in in the warm-up. That paved way for Danielle Gibson to make her WPL debut. Gibson did not fare all that badly as she picked up 2/40 and top-scored for her side with 24-ball 34 opening the innings.
"Deandra is a fantastic player, an impact player so there is no doubt that when she doesn't play last-minute, you lose a bit. But I thought Danny [Gibson] did a fantastic job. She was in our squad for that specific reason, to fill Deandra's spot if she was injured or had to miss a game due to whatever reason," the GG head coach said.
"She got an opportunity in the last game of the tournament after training well the whole four weeks. I'm happy for her."
With GG out, MI and Delhi Capitals (DC) will fight it out for the WPL title on March 15 (Sunday) in Mumbai.