UP Warriorz went out of WPL 2025 in the most thrilling manner, and they took defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru along with them. This means Gujarat Giants will now make their maiden playoffs appearance, joining Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians. The fight for the top spot, though, is still wide open.

Warriorz belted the tournament’s highest total yet, courtesy Georgia Voll’s unbeaten 99, another record for the WPL’s joint highest individual score. And that nearly didn’t prove enough because  Richa Ghosh and Sneh Rana threatened a jailbreak.

Ghosh smashed 69 off 33, but her dismissal with RCB needing 55 off 3.4 overs left them on the edge. Then came another twist, when Deepti Sharma, who dismissed Ghosh, conceded the most runs in a single over in the WPL’s short history – 28 off the 19th – as Rana smacked her for an incredible sequence of 4, 6, 6, 4, 6 to bring the target down to 15 off seven balls.

One of the fours also came off a no-ball, but more dramatically, prior to delivering that ball, Deepti stopped short of her delivery stride when Kim Garth backed up too far at the non-striker’s end, but did not run her out.

But Rana’s magic ended when she muscled a flat hit straight to Poonam Khemnar, whom RCB had let go ahead of the auction, at the deep midwicket fence. That blow, which left RCB nine down, was the knockout punch for the defending champions, with Warriorz sealing victory in the final over when they had Renuka Singh run out.

Fittingly enough, Voll, who at one point may have wondered if her magical knock may have gone in vain, delivered the final over that she began with two dots to all but close it out before the run-out. It marked an incredible end to Voll’s maiden WPL stint, which had needed her to cut short her home renovation in Queensland to make a quick dash to India only a week ago.

Having come in as a replacement for Chamari Athapaththu, Voll showed potential to possibly be retention material, a definite positive for the Warriorz in a campaign that brought them just three wins in eight matches.

Having made an impression in her first set of games for Australia in Alyssa Healy’s absence, Voll did the same in the WPL too. Three nights after hitting a half-century on debut, she cranked it up several notches along with Grace Harris as the Warriorz went hell for leather in the powerplay, hitting the second-most boundaries (13) in this phase in the tournament’s short history.

Voll exhibited her strong back-foot game, a consequence of having been brought up on bouncy decks in Queensland. She often stayed beside the line and opened up impossible gaps in the backward point region, but the standout was her display of brute forearm strength and a strong bottom hand to play a ferocious whip in front of square.

At the other end, Harris scooped and paddled her way to boundaries, quick to pounce on anything loose – and there were plenty of such deliveries from RCB’s new-ball pair of Garth and Renuka. Warriorz muscled their way to 67 for 0 in six overs – the highest powerplay score this season.

RCB had a gift soon after the powerplay when Harris was run out, but Kiran Navgire didn’t take long to settle in, muscling her second ball, off Ellyse Perry,  over the 60-metre boundary at deep square leg, and then carrying on to hit legspinner Georgia Wareham for back-to-back sixes in the following over.

At the other end, Voll raised her second straight fifty, off 31 balls, when she swung a full-toss to the deep midwicket boundary. The second-wicket pair’s comfort against spin forced Smriti Mandhana to turn to Renuka again in the 12th over, but the move proved utterly ineffective as Navgire clobbered her for 4, 2, 4, 0, 6, 6. The sixes were a thing of beauty for her nonchalance in swatting length balls bowled into the deck over the leg-side fence.

Overs 9-12 brought Warriorz 64 runs as they set themselves up for over 200. RCB had a clutch of wickets in the back end when they dismissed Navgire, Chinelle Henry and Sophie Ecclestone, but a tiring Voll charged towards a the tournament’s first-ever century, only to be denied off the last ball when a half-attempt at a second run to long-on, which would have brought up the landmark, led to Deepti being run out.

Mandhana was out to a tame pull early on, but RCB kept going after the bowling with S Meghana,  playing in her first game of the season, picking up 22 off the second over, bowled by Harris. Perry didn’t take long to settle in either, as she was up and running with three successive fours off Henry – all to different parts. She got on top of the bounce to cut the first one along the ground, then flicked a full-toss to fine leg, and followed up with the most blistering of pulls.

This intent cost Meghana and Perry their wickets, but not before they had played neat cameos. But there was a sense that they’d left too much for Ghosh to cover up – which she nearly did, exhibiting tremendous range. She used the depth of the crease to pull, made room to get beside the line to loft imperiously, and was quick to rock back when the bowlers dropped short to unfurl flat-bat pulls that bisected long-on and deep midwicket.

Her 64-run sixth-wicket stand with Wareham kept RCB alive, before it got to a point where it was Ghosh or nothing. When she fell, the end was nigh. But Rana wasn’t going to go down without a fight. In the end, she nearly pulled RCB home, but the fairlytale wasn’t to be.

Brief scores:
UP Warriorz Women 225 for 5 in 20 overs (Georgia Voll 99*, Kiran Navgire 46, Grace Harris 39, Chinell Henry 19, Sophie Ecclestone 13;  Georgia Wareham 2-43, Charlie Dean 1-47) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women 213 in 19.3 overs (Richa Ghosh 69, Ellyse Perry 28, Shabbhineni Meghana 27, Sneh Rana 26, Raghvi Bist 14, Georgia Wareham 17; Sophie Ecclestone 3-25, Deepti Sharma 3-50, Chinell Henry 2-39, Anjali Sarvani 1-40) by 12 runs

[Cricinfo]