This time, Verma, who opened for the Capitals alongside Meg Lanning is the third-highest run-scorer of the season and Ghosh has performed her role as a finisher and a wicketkeeper to perfection with 240 runs in the season, just behind Ellyse Perry and captain Smriti Mandhana. Verma has scored those runs at the top with a strike rate of 156.85, the highest for any batter with a minimum of 100 runs in the season and Ghosh is third on that list with a strike rate of 143.71. When it comes to hitting sixes, Verma has no close competitor as she has smashed 20 sixes throughout the season. Unsurprisingly, Ghosh with her 10 sixes from eight innings has taken the second spot.
If the first season was contrasting for both, with their performance in this season, they have shown that they belong to this stage. There is an added sense of maturity to the way both of them have gone about their business in this season. Verma always had the talent but after two seasons of WPL, she is looking more polished than ever. Along with her batting, Ghosh has also worked on her wicketkeeping skills. She has gone back to the drawing board and become one of the quality wicketkeepers in the country. Her 13 dismissals in the season are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how dominant her presence has been.
The two players, in their early 20s, facing some of the most experienced bowlers in the world, with that much maturity tells you how important having a competition like WPL is. And that brings us to the final when these two stars faced each other in the final of the second season. Verma did what she has been doing throughout the season.
Even when her captain was struggling to find her feat early in the powerplay, Verma did not let the opposition settle. A six off Sophie Molineux that helped her break free was sublime. It was followed by the 19 runs she scored from the Indian national side’s first-choice pacer Renuka Singh Thakur. Even Ellyse Perry could only watch when Verma smashed a full delivery over the bowler’s head.
In the powerplay, Verma was batting with a strike rate of 200, before her wicket led to Delhi Capitals collapse — they were all out for 113. Verma had done her job with the bat, on the pitch where every other batter struggled to get the start. Ghosh, fittingly, hit the winning runs as RCB won the 2024 WPL title
