On a chilly evening, in front of a packed holiday crowd at the Kotambi Stadium, Mumbai Indians turned a high-pressure, must-win game into a statement by simply leaning into their greatest strength: trust in their core. The 15-run victory over table-toppers RCB may seem tighter than reality, but it might just be the moment MI’s season narrative pivoted from uncertainty and indecision to authority, powered by their most-trusted set of match-winners.
MI aren’t accustomed to living in the uneasy world of qualification math in the WPL. For three seasons previously – two of which they won – they’ve operated from a position of control. Even a mega-auction reset failed to significantly disrupt their title-winning core from 2025. And yet, the results told a different story. For a franchise built on clarity, MI suddenly turned experimental, first by force and then by choice. The overseas-four combination – previously a settled, almost untouchable unit – became fluid. Four defeats in first-six games, and three on the trot leading up to the Republic Day clash with an already-qualified RCB, pushed MI into a precarious territory.
With their playoffs hopes hanging by a thread in tricky Vadodara conditions, MI pressed reset. Albeit forced by another undisclosed injury, the two-time champions reinstated their once set-in-stone foreign-player quartet, and the stars aligned, quite literally, to bail Mumbai out of the rut.
The biggest accolades of the night were reserved for Nat Sciver-Brunt. It came as no surprise that the league’s most consistent scorer – with 300+ runs in three out of four editions now – ended the century drought. Not just in WPL, 1059 days since its inception, but also the first of her own T20 career spanning 13 years and 334 matches. And she did that in the most Nat Sciver-Brunt way possible – making the sly switch between the PowerPlay consolidation and middle-overs acceleration with her sublime stroke-play and placement.
Before you realise, she’d have moved on from about a run-a-ball 20s to a half-century at a strike-rate of 150-plus. On Monday, she took just 25 balls more to go from 50 to her first-ever three-digit mark in the shortest format.
Her knock wasn’t just about numbers as much as it was about timing, composure and authority. Arriving in the PowerPlay had become a norm, given MI’s rotten luck with opening partnerships this season. But with Vadodara’s uneven bounce getting the better of some of the finest, the Englishwoman mixed caution with aggression perfectly to power MI to an above par score of 199 despite another slow PowerPlay with the bat to start off with.
She took all but Lauren Bell from the RCB attack to the cleaners, treating spin and pace with equal disdain. More importantly, her calming yet authoritative presence at the other end allowed breathing space to Hayley Matthews, who marked a successful return to form with a fine supporting act of 56 off 39 deliveries.
MI’s most frequent pain-point this season had been the lack of significant top-order partnerships but when it mattered the most, Sciver-Brunt and Matthews combined for a 131-run match-winning stand. They now have four of those – the top-four of MI’s five century partnerships across seasons – a reflection of how central this pairing had been to MI’s identity.
MI’s overseas players also led the bowling effort ©BCCI
The momentum they built carried seamlessly into the bowling innings wherein Matthews, continuing her all-round influence for the side, teamed up with Shabnim Ismail to tear through RCB’s top-order. MI’s PowerPlay with the ball hadn’t produced encouraging numbers either throughout the season, but in Vadodara they effectively sealed the game in the matter of 19 deliveries between Matthews and Ismail.
The off-spin match-up against Smriti Mandhana worked like a charm, and RCB suddenly had both their big-hitting openers back in the hut after Grace Harris had nicked Ismail behind at the start of the third over. Georgia Voll was strangled down the legside on possibly the worst of Matthews’ 12 deliveries on the night, and then she baited Radha Yadav with a full delivery outside off that the Indian allrounder holed out to Ismail at long-off. Ismail though claimed the wicket of the night – cleaning up the rookie Gautami Naik who was beaten by the sheer pace – and proving why there was never merit in resting her midway through the campaign. At 35/5 in 5.1 overs, the duo had inflicted the bulk of the damage to put MI firmly in control.
Amelia Kerr, who also surprisingly faced the axe, was playing her first match at the venue and had a crucial part to play as well. In Richa Ghosh and Nadine de Klerk, RCB still had enough firepower to try and pull off the unthinkable. Kerr arrived only at the halfway mark, began with a five-run over and then prised out the South African finisher. Aware of RCB’s growing desperation to accelerate, she began her second over with a googly upfront and had de Klerk top-edge to deep midwicket for the final nail in the coffin. The legspinner did take a bit of a beating at the end from Ghosh, but the ask was way out of RCB’s hand by then and Kerr did have the last laugh.
The win propelled MI to second on the points table, behind RCB, with a healthy NRR of +0.146 as compared to other three involved in the four-way tangle for the two remaining playoffs spots. While the bottom-three do have an extra game each, MI are far better placed with their fate in their own hands and that NRR buffer tipping the scales in their favour should the need arise.
“They just tried to instill more trust in us,” Matthews said of the message from the leadership group and the management ahead of the must-win contest for their campaign. “We’ve been such a successful team before with the core group that we have, and we obviously haven’t gone as well as we’ve wanted to this season.
“However, we know the quality that we’ve had in the dressing room all season long, and we just haven’t managed to make it click. So they just instill the trust. I think Harry’s [Harmanpreet Kaur] message was making sure that we’re still going out there and enjoying ourselves at every moment. [Glad that] we were able to bring it all together and play the way we know we’re capable of.”
Having been pushed to the brink, Mumbai hauled themselves back into the contention and have their OG overseas star-power to thank for it. The game was a stark reminder that MI, when they play their cards right, still remain the one to beat in WPL.