Watch: Stumps lit up, bails don't fall! Sophie Devine survives only to get bamboozled by Hayley Matthews

The 34-year-old Royal Challengers Bangalore Women (RCB-W) all-rounder Sophie Devine got an early reprieve during the Eliminator of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 against Mumbai Indians Women (MI-W) on Friday, March 15, at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.

The Royal Challengers Bangalore Women won the toss and opted to bat first in the high-profile match. The Smriti Mandhana & Co. fielded the same playing XI that demolished the Mumbai Indians Women in the previous clash while the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side made one change with Yastika Bhatia returning in place of Priyanka Bala.

The RCB-W were off to a good start in the match as Sophie Devine and Smriti Mandhana took the team off to a flyer by smashing Mumbai Indians Women bowlers for boundaries.

As Devine was trying to play an attacking brand of cricket, a bizarre incident happened on the 4th ball of the first over. The star pacer Shabnim Ismail bowled a 112.3kph length delivery to Devine. The RCB-W batter only managed to get an inside edge and the ball went on to hit the leg stump. However, Sophie Devine was very lucky as the stumps were lit up but the bails remained intact. Also, she got four runs as the ball ran away to the fine leg for a four.

Meanwhile, Sophie Devine wasn’t able to make the most of the opportunity she got as she fell to a peach from Hayley Matthews in the second over of the innings.

On the last ball of the over, Matthews bowled an absolute peach at a speed of 83.1kph. The flighted ball pitched around off-stump and Devine played down the wrong line and saw her stumps getting rattled. Devine was in disbelief after her dismissal and she had to walk back to the dugout after scoring just 10 runs off 7 balls, with 2 fours.

Notably, Sophie Devine has always struggled against the Mumbai Indians Women in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) as she averages just 7.80 from five matches against the team.

Watch the incidents involving Sophie Devine here:

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Speaking ahead of the match, Sophie Devine spoke about RCB-W’s dominant victory against MI-W in their previous match where Ellyse Perry annihilated the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side. However, she was aware of the fact that Mumbai Indians Women would make a strong comeback. She said:

“Nice to be here in this position after a pretty tough season last season. To be able to pull through and have a good win against Mumbai the other day … but everything starts from scratch today. We know that we haven’t played our best cricket. Our last game was pretty close to what we’ve been after the whole tournament. Although we’ve got a bit of confidence, we know that this Mumbai team is going to come back hard.”

Sophie Devine further expressed her hope over the good performance of RCB-W against the MI-W. She said:

“I certainly hope so (picked up momentum at the right time). A lot has been spoken about that our best cricket is in front of us and I certainly think that’s still the case today. It’s a scrumptious match-up today coming up against Mumbai, the reigning champs. Hopefully we can put out a good performance. We know, when we are at our best, we are going to be tough to beat.”