Ashleigh Gardner's 58 Leads Gujarat Giants to Victory Over RCB in WPL 2025

Gujarat Giants captain Ashleigh Gardner's 58 off 31 balls helped Gujarat Giants beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by six wickets with 21 balls to spare in the 12th match of the Women's Premier League (WPL) 2025 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Thursday.

Chasing a target of 126 runs, Gujarat Giants scored their second win of the season by scoring 126 runs for the loss of 4 wickets in 16.3 overs thanks to their captain's brilliant half-century and Phoebe Lichfield's unbeaten 30 runs. Defending champions RCB performed poorly in the power-play while batting first. RCB, who came out to save the total of low scores, also took carelessness in the field, leaving the catches of Lichfield which cost them further.

Chasing the target of 126 runs, Gujarat Giants got off to a good start with Beth Mooney (17) and Dayalan Hemalatha (11). Added 25 runs for the first wicket. But during the power-play, Gujarat lost both the openers within eight balls.

Gujarat Giants were 32/2 in the seventh over. The noise of the 28,000 RCB fans sitting in the stadium echoed in the hope of an unexpected victory.

But Gardner batted brilliantly, scoring his third half-century of WPL 2025 in 28 balls. He had a good partnership with Harleen Deol, Lichfield. Thanks to this, the team headed towards victory.

Gardner hit a brilliant cover drive on the first ball at the start of the innings and scored a four. He changed things in favour of Gujarat with his brilliant innings.

Gardner completed his half-century with two consecutive sixes off Wareham. Gujarat also put up a brilliant bowling display against RCB. For Gujarat, Deandra Dottin took 2 wickets for 31 runs. While Tanuja Kanwar took 2 wickets for 16 runs in her four overs. With this, Gujarat Giants decided to bowl first and restricted RCB to 125 runs. RCB, looking for victory after two defeats, had a poor start and their score was three wickets for 26 runs in the power-play.

Brief Scores:

Royal Challengers Bangalore 125/7 in 20 overs (Kanika Ahuja 33, Raghavi Bisht 22; Deandra Dottin 2-31, Tanuja Kanwar 2-16, Kashvi Gautam 1-17) vs Gujarat Giants 126/4 in 16.3 overs (Ashleigh Gardner 58, Phoebe Litchfield 30 not out; Renuka Singh 2-24)

--IANS