WPL 2024: Disciplined Mumbai Indians Put in Fielding Masterclass Against Royal Challengers Bangalore

After their first defeat of the second edition of the WPL against the UP Warriorz on Wednesday, MI head coach Charlotte Edwards addressed the press and labelled the fielding on that day as the team’s “worst performance in the field”.

“It was our worst performance in the field. We were very good until now, and sometimes when you are on the backfoot with the way the opposition played, it happens. It is something I will be speaking to the players about. We still have to have that aggressive mindset even if someone is trying to take the attack to us,” Edwards had told the press, after the defeat.

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On Saturday, three days after the loss, MI won the toss and opted to field against RCB in front of a Chinnaswamy Stadium, filled to the brim and vociferously favouring the home side.

Nat Sciver-Brunt took the new ball and bowled her first ball down the leg side, which RCB skipper Smriti Mandhana tugged it behind square.

As a viewer, you would be forgiven to think that the ball would race away to the boundary. But that did not turn out to be the case on Saturday as Saika Ishaque sprinted in time to stop the ball from going to the boundary and save two runs for her side.

SAVE. It is a word that became synonymous with MI on the day. While their bowlers kept a tight lid on the boundaries by maintaining good lines and lengths, they were aided by some fine ground fielding, which meant that the RCB innings could never get going at the rate they would have wished for.

The size of the Chinnaswamy Stadium is such that all it requires for a batter to do a hit a gap and invariably, the quick outfield does the rest. On Saturday, the MI fielders ensured that the pressure applied in not allowing the RCB batters to get the extra run helped their cause in the final tally, as RCB could only conjure a mere 131 runs on the board.

From putting in their worst fielding performance a few days ago, MI had turned it around to such an extent against RCB that all rounder and Player of the match Amelia Kerr referred to the work put on the field against the hosts as “probably our best fielding performance today”.

“The loss against UP Warriorz, I mean, no one goes out to play sport to lose. In this tournament, with so many games, you are going to lose a game at some point and it is about taking the learnings from it.”

“I think we did that really well today. We reviewed that game and spoke about being more aggressive in the Powerplay with both bat and ball and also our fielding. I thought it was,” Kerr said in the post-match press conference.

The key factor that led to MI turning things around in the field, as per Kerr, was the attitude among the players, whom she said were willing to dive around to try and save as many runs as they could against RCB on Saturday.

“Fielding’s a real attitude thing. You have got to want the ball. I think that was the key for us in the messages that we don’t care if we make the mistakes if we are 100 per cent committed. I think that attitude was turned, in terms of going for everything, diving for everything and that is what you want in your fielding. You want that attitude, that energy, that commitment,” Kerr said.

In one way or another, it could help MI that their best fielding performance came in their last match of the Bengaluru leg. As they move to the Arun Jaitley Stadium- another ground with fairly smallish boundaries- they have a template to fall back upon and put in similar performances in future matches.