MUM­BAI – West In­dies cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews failed again with the bat but made a mas­sive im­pact with the ball, to help Mum­bai In­di­ans main­tain their un­beat­en run with a 55-run thrash­ing of Gu­jarat Gi­ants in the Women’s Pre­mier League in In­dia on Tues­day.

The right-han­der, who struck a rich vein of form in her open­ing three match­es of the tour­na­ment, per­ished for a three-ball ‘duck’ at the top of the or­der but Mum­bai got a top score of 51 from cap­tain Har­man­preet Kaur to gath­er 162 for eight from their 20 overs.

Matthews then re­turned with her off-spin to snatch three for 23 from four in­ci­sive overs and desta­bilise the Gi­ants run chase, the in­nings even­tu­al­ly melt­ing down at 107 for nine.

Mum­bai have won all their five games to sit on top of the five-team stand­ings on 10 points, al­beit on­ly two points clear of Del­hi Cap­i­tals who have lost once in five out­ings.

Sent in at Brabourne Sta­di­um, Mum­bai stum­bled ear­ly when Matthews drove the fourth de­liv­ery of the con­test to cov­er, to give Aus­tralian off-spin­ner Ash­leigh Gard­ner (3-34) the first of her three wick­ets.

How­ev­er, Matthews’ open­ing part­ner Yasti­ka Bha­tia struck 44 from 37 de­liv­er­ies with five fours and a six while Eng­land all-rounder Nat Sciv­er-Brunt belt­ed 36 from 31 de­liv­er­ies, in a 74-run, sec­ond wick­et stand to pull the in­nings around.

Kaur, who struck sev­en fours and a cou­ple of six­es in a 30-ball knock, then kept the in­nings go­ing in a 51-run, fourth wick­et stand with Amelia Kerr (19).

Matthews sus­tained Mum­bai’s mo­men­tum, grab­bing two of the first three wick­ets to fall as Gi­ants slipped to 57 for six in the 12th over of their run chase.

Harleen De­ol (22) and cap­tain Sneh Rana (20) were the on­ly ones to reach 20 as seam­er Sciv­er-Brunt (3-21) and leg-spin­ner Amelia Kerr (2-18) fol­lowed up Matthews’ ear­ly sal­vo with dam­ag­ing spells to lim­it Gi­ants’ scor­ing.

CMC