Giants coach Michael Klinger rated his team’s performance against the Mumbai Indians as “minus 20” due to a number of mistakes.
It was difficult to keep track of how many blunders the Gujarat Giants (GG) made on Thursday night. They lost the WPL 2025 Eliminator to the Mumbai Indians (MI), who were excellent in the field, by 47 runs as a result of these mistakes made in fielding and sprinting between the wickets. “Probably minus 20 to us [for the lapses] and plus 20 to them” is how their coach, Michael Klinger, put it.
The major setback occurred five minutes prior to the game when standout all-rounder Deandra Dottin sustained an injury. She experienced pain when a tendon in her knee flared up as she was bowling during the team’s warm-up. For a checkup, Dottin, who had been battling the tendon problem during the competition, was hurried to the dressing room. She was put back on the field by the Giants management to give it a shot, but as she dashed in to try to bowl, she experienced pain once more and realized she wouldn’t make it. Frustrated, she threw the ball toward the plastic stumps. Although she received praise, the Giants were unable to compensate for her absence.
“I’m certainly not a medical expert, but I’ve had some [tendon injuries] before when I used to play and it does get better as you warm-up, so we tried to give her another opportunity just to come out and see if she could [play], and she would have potentially liked to play as a batter only,” Michael Klinger, the Giants coach, said following the game. Danny Gibson was brought in as a direct replacement for her because we would have been short-handed in bowlers, and I felt that he did a fantastic job tonight.
Despite the fact that teams batting first had won the previous three games, the Giants won the toss and chose to chase while keeping the dew in mind. When Mumbai only managed 37 for 1 in the powerplay, they would have felt vindicated, but Nat Sciver-Brunt and Hayley Matthews’ incredible 133-run partnership in just 77 balls deflated them. The Giants fielders misfielded frequently to allow runs to seep both inside the circle and at the boundary, and they gave up more catches (four) than they held (three). This culminated with the intimidating Mumbai total of 213.
However, throwing in Twenty20 cricket doesn’t win you matches. It would have likely been more simpler to bowl first than second because it was soggy outside during the second half tonight. However, defending a score of 200 or more puts strain on a batting group, which is likely why we lost so many wickets tonight.”
Mumbai’s fielding was excellent, beginning with Matthews’ dive to get rid of Beth Mooney in the first over of the chase. Her teammates then took on the task of making every run-out opportunity that came their way, and they did it correctly three times.
“Yeah, our fielding wasn’t great tonight,” Klinger acknowledged. “Most people could see that clearly. Additionally, I thought the Mumbai Indians’ fielding was excellent. It does happen some times, as they would have admitted when they lost to RCB the other night that they weren’t pleased with their fielding either. As I mentioned, I believe there was a swing of roughly 40 runs on the field, so we would have loved to have performed better there. I assumed that it would be minus 20 for us and plus 20 for them. We lost by 47 runs, you know. That can therefore occasionally make a significant difference in the game, but it’s okay, that occurs.”
Harleen Deol was involved in a mix-up and failed after Mooney fell early. Shortly afterward, Kashvee Gautam paid the price for taking on Harmanpreet Kaur’s arm inside the 30-yard circle, and Gibson was ran out while attempting to take a second.
“Yeah, a few run-outs in a run chase isn’t ideal as well, but you know that was going to be a tough ask, and we had to get a lot of things right in that chase and didn’t quite happen,” Klinger stated.
Who knows what might have happened if the toss had been called correctly, a star all-rounder in the starting lineup who was totally fit, catches were made, and runs were made.
