The final league game of the three-team Women's T20 Challenge in Jaipur set off a debate over whether Mithali Raj's Velocity should have squandered the opportunity to play a compelling brand of cricket and compete for a win, instead of securing qualification into the final via a botched chase based largely on a "calculative", net-run-rate-centric approach.

The purpose of the four-match tournament, carrying official T20 status, is to build up to a full-fledged IPL-style league for women, by drawing in more audience with high-quality cricket. On Thursday though, Velocity's innings - following No. 3 batsman Danielle Wyatt's dismissal - exemplified anything but, before a 7000-strong crowd.

Chasing 143 against Harmanpreet Kaur's Supernovas, and with both spots in the final up for grabs, the qualification scenario upon Wyatt's departure was that Velocity needed 66 off 51 balls to win. But in the larger scheme of things, they needed at least 40 runs in those 51 balls to qualify for the final even if it came in a loss on the night. Getting to 117 would've allowed Velocity to finish the league on second and pip third-placed Trailblazers on NRR for a final showdown with Supernovas. The target of 117 was the fail-safe for Velocity should they lose the game.

After scoring 77 for 3 from the first 69 balls of the innings on Thursday, Velocity made 53 off the remaining 51 without losing a wicket. They hit only two fours, off 43 balls, until reaching the 117-run mark, their qualification cut-off. By then, the equation for a Velocity win had ballooned to 25 runs off eight balls, and they eventually managed to take only two singles and two more fours.

Steering the chase since Wyatt's dismissal had been Raj and Veda Krishnamurthy, who remained unbeaten on 40 off 42 and 30 off 29 respectively. Krishnamurthy, herself an attacking batsman, shed light on Velocity's conservative approach to the chase in the post-match press conference.

"In the previous game, we made a lapse by losing heap of wickets because we were in a rush to close out the chase," said Krishnamurthy of Velocity's 5-for-0 collapse in pursuit of two runs that nearly cost them the game against Trailblazers on Wednesday.

"So our initial aim [on Thursday] was to qualify for the final because we had a certain target [117] to get. So, we were asked to play accordingly. And when we got close to that target is actually when we tried to go for our shots."

The experienced pair's cautious approach stuck out as a sore thumb in their defeat, for only two days ago, the fearless strokeplay of their 15-year-old uncapped team-mate Shafali Verma became an early highlight of their three-wicket win, and the tournament.

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Krishnamurthy, however, reasoned that any other approach on their part would have exposed the "inexperienced" Velocity middle-order to a "pressure situation" and put their chances of qualification in jeopardy.

"If you look at it, we did get good runs in the Powerplay," said Krishnamurthy, "with Danni going about playing her natural game. It put us on the front-foot. It was just that we were being very calculative in how to get the game done.

"We wanted to get as close as possible, considering after me, it's a bit of an inexperienced middle order coming in, so we didn't want to put them under a pressure situation. We just wanted to get as close as we can so we have another game to come back and think about it."