IT HAS not all been smooth sailing for the Mumbai Indians in the 2025 Women’s Indian Premier League season, splitting their first two matches with one win and one loss.

But, that win did come in an emphatic way a few days ago, as they took down the Gujarat Giants to win by five wickets.

>> REPORT | Mumbai Indians 5-122 (16.1) defeated Gujarat Giants 10-120 (19.3)

A huge part in the success the Indians achieved that evening was Englishwoman Natalie Sciver-Brunt. Although not the official player of the match for that particular game, she arguably played the more important role, delivering with both bat and ball.

Natalie Sciver-Brunt stats vs Gujarat Giants

Bowling: 2-26 off four overs
Batting: 57 runs off 39 balls (11 fours, 0 sixes)

Bowling innings

After Shabnim Ismail took the first over of the innings and had the Giants 0-6 at the end of her over, Sciver-Brunt took the second over of the innings. Sciver-Brunt’s first ball of the over saw a pretty simple shot from Beth Mooney stopped at point.

In her second ball of the over it was a slightly shorter length but similar line compared to her first ball of the innings, but Mooney danced down the wicket a little, so connected with the ball at a different angle. It lead her to sky the ball slightly finer than where her first shot of the over had gone, straight into the hands of Sanskriti Gupta and Mooney was back in the sheds.

Sciver-Brunt then went on to concede seven runs from that over. In a clear ploy from the Indians to keep the Giants guessing, Sciver-Brunt only ended up bowling one over in her first spell, but did return in the sixth over.

At the beginning of Sciver-Brunt’s second over, Gujarat was 3-20 and still in a fair amount of strife.

After conceding eight runs in the over before the wicket ball, Sciver-Brunt was certainly in the mood for a wicket. And a wicket is what she got on the final ball of the over, as another Aussie in Ash Gardner skied the ball to almost a long on region and straight into the hands of Sajana S. That wicket was particularly crucial as Gardner had started the tournament in some hot form, only to fall for a mere 10 runs this innings.

Batting innings

Then came Sciver-Brunt’s efforts with the bat. Sciver-Brunt came in at first drop two thirds of the way through the fourth over, with the Indians at 1-22, and did not take long to get off the mark, scoring a four with the first ball she faced.  

That would be far from the last boundary she would score, with 10 more boundaries coming from her bat. She timed her strokes well, and utilised the full wagon wheel of potential shots.

Her dismissal ultimately came on the penultimate ball of the 16th over, as she played a wider shot but managed to knick the ball back onto her stumps and be sent packing. However, by this stage the Indians only needed six more runs for victory, so Sciver-Brunt had just about seen them home.