Delhi Capitals 163 for 8 (Lanning 55, Meghna 4-37) beat Gujarat Giants 138 for 8 (Gardner 40, Radha 3-20, Jonassen 3-22) by 25 runs

Jonassen gets the job done

Phoebe Litchfield helped herself to 11 runs off Sadhu's second over. Then three fours in four balls to Mooney and Litchfield off Pandey had Giants cruising in the fourth over. But Jonassen entered the attack and pinned Mooney on the front pad adjacent to the stumps and Giants had to try and rebuild. Jonassen struck again, however, when Litchfield spooned one straight to mid-off and the momentum swung firmly towards Capitals.

Radha, at deep midwicket, put down a catch off Veda Krishnamurthy, on 6, but crucially Giants were well behind on 41 for 3 at the end of the powerplay. After seven overs, they had already faced 25 dot balls. Gardner cut loose with a 78m six and four off Arundhati Reddy so that at the halfway point of the innings Giants were 72 for 4, needing 92 more. Jonassen returned to the attack with Giants needing 60 from six overs and she all but ended their hopes, putting the ball on a length outside off-stump as Gardner advanced, swung and missed. Taniya Bhatia whipped off the bails with Gardner too far down the track and Giants too far behind.

Meghna shines big-time for Giants

Shafali Verma struck the first ball she faced, from Tanuja Kanwar, through square leg for four with impeccable timing and two balls later lofted a six back over the bowler's head. To make matters worse for Giants, Kanwar dropped a return catch off Shafali at the end of the over, which cost 12 runs there and then, and who was to know how many more at that point. As it turned out, Shafali added just three more before Meghna had her comfortably caught by Wolvaardt at square leg. Lanning and Capsey settled into a rhythm and took Capitals to 51 for 1 by the end of the powerplay, but Meghna struck again with the crucial wicket of Capsey, who was in good form with scores of 75 and 46 heading into the match. Meghna ended Capsey's latest innings on 27 with a tempter outside off stump, sliced to Kanwar at backward point, and she wasn't done yet.

That sent Capitals into their shell as 19 deliveries came and went without a boundary. Lanning broke that by thumping debutant Tarannum Pathan over long-off for a maximum and from there she looked busy once more. Lanning should have been gone for 30 when she spooned a Mannat Kashyap delivery straight to mid-off, where Kathryn Bryce missed a sitter. Gardner had conceded 11 runs off her first over and her second went for 13 as Lanning moved within one clean strike of her fifty. She got there with an authoritative jab to the right of midwicket which was so well hit it evaded Gardner's best efforts to stop it just inside the rope at deep midwicket. Another four over cover came off the next ball but it was Lanning's anguish and Meghna's joy when D Hemalatha moved to her left and held on at cover point to stop the Capitals skipper in full flow after her second half-century of the campaign.