UP Warriorz’ second WPL season ended where no-one at the franchise wanted to be: bottom of the five-team table, two wins from eight and an early flight home. Head coach Abhishek Nayar and captain Meg Lanning offered a calm, if candid, assessment after the closing five-wicket defeat to Delhi Capitals.
“We got some momentum when we won those two games [in Navi Mumbai]. Then we came to Baroda and lost Phoebe [Litchfield] after that,” Nayar explained at the post-match press conference. “That also impacted the way our team was set up. It was very hard for us to replace someone who had got almost 250 runs by then in the season. In the business end, you want your in-form players to be there. Our No. 3 didn’t look the same post Phoebe. It was hard for us to fill her boots in that regard.”
Those back-to-back victories over Mumbai Indians – notably, the first side ever to do the double over the two-time champions – had briefly revived hopes of a top-three finish. Three straight defeats in Vadodara, however, ended any realistic chance of a late surge. Even so, the mathematicians kept Warriorz interested until their final fixture: beat Capitals by 156 runs and the Eliminator beckoned. A par score of 122 and four dropped catches, three of them reprieving Laura Wolvaardt en route to 47 from 36 balls, swiftly closed that door.
Lanning, who knows enough about winning T20 cricket to recognise when her side are below par, put it plainly. “We just haven’t been consistent enough,” she said. “We’ve had patches of games where we have played well and put the opposition under pressure but sort of given it back to them easily. That’s the biggest thing for me, just doing it for longer. When you get a team under pressure [to] really make it difficult for them to stay in the game.”
Top-order turbulence proved costly. Power-hitter Kiran Navgire arrived on a wave of domestic runs yet walked away with three ducks in six outings. Nayar tried three opening combinations – only one team shuffled things more – and none truly settled. After brief experiments with Harleen Deol, the coach promoted Deepti Sharma for the final two matches, chasing a left-hand option against England seamer Lauren Bell.
“In T20 cricket, when your top order fires, your team tends to do well. Unfortunately, the way the season went for Kiran, it did not pan out the way it should have,” Nayar said. “When I made the decision to open with Harleen, I felt it wasn’t the right one. When I made the call for Deepti opening, the call was based on numbers – the fact that Lauren Bell doesn’t have great numbers against left-handers.
“It wasn’t like no one’s scoring runs, so send [Deepti to open]. If we would have had Phoebe, maybe she [Deepti] wouldn’t have opened. But because we didn’t have Phoebe, we needed that left-hander to come and take [Bell] on in the powerplay. Is that a long-term solution, I am not sure. That was not a stroke of luck, there was a bit of thought.”
The statistics reinforce their frustrations. UPW posted 140 or more only twice, and their bowling – spearheaded by Sophie Ecclestone and Tahlia McGrath – often found itself defending thin totals on slow, low pitches. A collective economy rate nudging nine an over left little room for mis-fielding or dropped chances.
Yet there were bright spots. Becoming Mumbai’s bogey side will encourage sponsors and supporters alike, while Litchfield’s impressive start suggests the top three could be secure if she returns next year. Ecclestone remains a premier left-arm spinner in the women’s game, and 20-year-old pacer Saima Thakor’s late-season spell of 3 for 17 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru was a welcome glimpse of future depth.
For now, Nayar and Lanning have an off-season to untangle what felt, at times, like an unsolvable puzzle. Injuries, out-of-form stars and the brutal brevity of an eight-match league combined to leave Warriorz out of the play-offs for the first time.
“We can’t hide behind what-ifs,” Nayar concluded, expression sombre but measured. “It just didn’t work out this year, but the learnings are clear. We’ve got to be sharper at the start, make better use of powerplays and, above all, hold our chances. If we do that, the table will look after itself.”
