Jemimah Rodrigues, Lizelle Lee helm DC's second win in tricky chase

Jemimah Rodrigues put her best foot forward with an exceptionally-timed 51* as her Delhi Capitals rose from the bottom of the table to join the chasing pack - now of four teams with four points each behind the already-qualified RCB on 10.

Even before Charles Dagnall could announce which side the toss coin had fallen on, Rodrigues announced that DC would bowl having realised Harmanpreet Kaur had called wrong. The first 20 minutes of play showed why there was such an urgency. The same pitch in Vadodara that saw GG post the lowest PowerPlay score of the season - 29 for 3, pushed MI even lower - 23 for 2, on Tuesday.

Marizane Kapp helmed those early ruins and lethargy as she bowled three overs in the PowerPlay for five runs and a wicket. With both openers S Sajana and Hayley Mathews dismissed, and two of MI's stalwarts in the middle, Rodrigues opted not to take the foot off the pedal. Kapp came back to bowl her fourth over in the same spell, hoping to dismiss one of Harmanpreet Kaur or Nat Sciver-Brunt - the two who tormented DC in the reverse fixture.

That was not to be, even as Kapp wrapped up her spell with 14 dot balls. But her exit from the scene was the cue the two MI batters needed to step up after the abysmal start as they got stuck in, in the middle overs against Sneh Rana and the spinners. They got boundaries more frequently, and accessed the longer square dimensions for easy singles and twos to casually up the scoring rate. None of Rana, Shree Charani or Nandni Sharma could stop the flow of runs as the MI pair took the scoring rate past six-an-over mark. Even golden arm Shafali Varma was welcomed with absolute disdain - the Englishwoman pulling and sweeping on either side of square leg for three fours in the 13th over.

Charani finally broke through, getting Harmanpreet to hole out to long on, but not before a 78-run stand offered MI a score to build their death exploits on. Sciver-Brunt got to a 33-ball half-century - going level with Meg Lanning for the number of WPL fifties (11). She took more runs off Lucy Hamilton in the 17th over but Charani put the brakes on in the 18th, dismissing Nicola Carey and Amanjot Kaur. Nandni bowled a fabulous penultimate over worth seven runs but a last-ball six in the 20th - Sanskriti Gupta against Hamilton, drove MI past the 150-run mark. Sciver-Brunt meanwhile, walked off undefeated on 65 off 45.

There was an intriguing contrast to DC's start and progression. Lizelle Lee and Shafali succeeded at trying to eat into a massive chunk of the target inside the PowerPlay. The chase began with a crisp Shafali drive past mid-off and the PowerPlay was characterised by many such shots flying off the bats of the DC openers. The chasers had 57 for 0 in 6 overs with as many as 13 boundaries hit between the two openers.

The contrast didn't end there. The middle-overs where MI began to catch some steam, DC lost a lot of it. For four post-PowerPlay overs, DC couldn't score a single boundary, and also lost Shafali to Vaishnavi Sharma. Then came another dramatic over, which started with a second-ball six and a stumping call that the TV umpire took his time over, before sending Lee back. She trudged off shaking her head furiously but the decision appeared to be a very good one as the TV umpire explored different angles of the replay to come to the conclusion that the South African's bat was in the air and the foot on the line when the bails were broken.

Rodrigues and Laura Wolvardt inched towards the death overs without further damage, but also without bridging the gap between runs required and balls remaining too aggressively. 43 off 30 became 37 off 24, when a slice of misfortune sent Wolvaardt back. A straight drive from Rodrigues ricocheted off the bowler Sciver-Brunt's palms and struck the stumps at the non-striker's end when Wolvaardt was out of the crease.

Rodrigues didn't let that moment hang heavy or drain the game away from her grasp as she tonked a six over cow corner in the same over. She then opened and closed the 18th over with a four, pushing the equation down to 14 off 12. Fittingly, DC wrapped up the win in an over bowled by the thorn in their lives this season - Sciver-Brunt, as Rodrigues hit a four and Kapp sealed the win with a six.

Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians 154/5 in 20 overs (Nat Sciver-Brunt 65*, Harmanpreet Kaur 41; Shree Charani 3-33) lost to Delhi Capitals 155/3 in 19 overs (Jemimah Rodrigues 51*, Lizelle Lee 46; Vaishnavi Sharma 1-20) by 7 wickets