As Deepti Sharma returned to the top of her bowling mark - over no. 18.3 in the Delhi Capitals' chase - the two giant screens at diagonally opposite ends of the Arun Jaitley Stadium animatedly flashed 'hattrick ball'. Both Annabel Sutherland and Arundhati Reddy had just perished trying to swipe across the line and be the hero when the Capitals needed the last 15 runs off 12 balls. Moments later, the on-air commentator gushed, "up and over she goes" as the new batter, Shikha Pandey, skipped down the track to smack it straight over the bowler's head and into the ropes. The hat-trick has been averted, or so thought both the parties. And also, Deepti.
It wasn't until the next ball, and a sharp return catch off her own bowling which gave Deepti her fourth wicket of the night, that the commentators had caught on. Meg Lanning, who had single-handedly led Delhi's chase with a 46-ball 60, was her first victim, trapped LBW on the final ball of the 14th over - the third of Deepti's four of the night. Blissfully unaware yet, the bowler and her UPW teammates were still only high-fiving for getting another strike closer to bagging those two crucial points. Deepti's seminal milestone spread across two overs and, perhaps therefore, slipped through the cracks, but her never-give-up spirit inspired Warriorz's campaign-saving 1-run victory from the jaws of a certain defeat on Friday.
Long before Deepti the offspinner sent down that game-changing over, it was Deepti the batter that had influenced the proceedings with a fighting, if not the most fluent, half-century knock. Coming into this must-win contest for UPW on the back of a 36-ball 53 - the fifty coming off a last-ball six - Deepti earned herself a promotion to no. 3 and held the UPW innings together amidst yet another middle-order collapse around her for a second successive night at the Kotla.
Now, there were more contributing factors to that move from the Warriorz think-tank than just her form.
Encouraged by the team management to shed her wicket-preserving methods, Deepti started the season at no. 8 for a couple of games, preceded in the batting order by three of their four overseas stars in the top-four and the uncapped trio of Kiran Navgire, Shweta Sehrawat and Poonam Khemnar at no.5, 6 and 7. That, however, made the middle-order short on experience and prone to collapses. Two defeats upfront and Warriorz duly rectified it by promoting Deepti at no. 5, her improved batting approach playing a significant part.
A firm believer in "learning never stops", the allrounder grabbed that chance with both hands and chipped in an unbeaten 20-ball 27 in their first win of the season, against Mumbai Indians, and a valiant 33 off just 22 as they went down to RCB in a high-scoring chase in their last game in Bengaluru.
Once over in Delhi, Deepti's stroke-filled maiden WPL fifty was the only silver lining to the Warriorz soul-crushing win at the hands of MI in the reverse fixture. But, when the team benched Chamari Athapaththu for the do-or-die clash against DC, the stars aligned for the fellow southpaw and in-form batter to finally grab the top-order position she had been craving for all along.
And as much as a constant stream of wickets at the other end allowed her to, Deepti took charge of the proceedings. The low bounce and slow surface aided her natural style of play and she revived the innings alongside Alyssa Healy with a steady 46-run stand that came at slightly better than run-a-ball. When the captain's wicket triggered an all too familiar middle-overs collapse, Deepti held one end up and kept the runs flowing through mini partnerships enroute her 48-ball 59 to help UPW claw their way to a respectable 138 that would give her fellow bowlers something to play with.
On a track her teammates failed to get going on Thursday or learn from their mistakes on Friday, Deepti put her hand up two days in a row with contrasting yet effective half-centuries. The more aggressive 53* knock may have been in vain and the 59 tonight proved just about enough in hindsight, but more than the volume of runs or the manner in which they came, what stood out was Deepti stepping up to the challenges thrown at her by the management.
"I've actually seen some quite big improvement in Deepti over the course of this tournament," said Jon Lewis after the defeat against MI on Thursday. "We've been encouraging her to shift her mindset just a little bit in terms of her intent to score at the start of her innings. And I think she's played much better than last year where she was a little bit reticent to taking risks. And in T20 cricket you have to take calculated risks to score at the rate that is required, especially on small grounds with fast outfields... The bit we're trying to encourage her to develop is when the [asking] rate is a bit higher than run-a-ball, so she can start her innings at the pace of the game and take the game away from there. She definitely has the ability to do that... and I've seen quite an improvement on that front."
Teammate Grace Harris, who mopped up the remaining three wickets in the final over to complete a thrilling heist on Friday, revealed that while Deepti's one-down slot against DC was more in order to field a left-right combination in the middle, her gradual promotion in the batting order over the season has been in line with the team's expectations. "...Deepti can easily work pace bowling at the back end while still developing that high strike rate," Harris told the media after the narrow win.
"When you're lower down the order, you're able to bat [more freely] instead of holding back your wicket as a batter would higher up. Sometimes, just to help you get through that initial learning period of upping your strike rate, it's healthier and easier to be listed lower down the order because you have less balls to face and have to go. When you come higher up the order, you feel like you kind of have to cement the innings and then go. [This year] Deepti has been fantastic at going and staying going."
Statistics back up this theory. Contrary to the preconceived notion, the Agra-born allrounder has indeed shown marked improvement in batting intent in only a year at UPW. Going by pure numbers, Deepti has upped her strike-rate from a lowly 83.33 in WPL 2023 to 132.69 in the seven outings of the second season thus far. That's also significantly higher than her international strike-rate of about 104.74. Her boundary count, which reads 24 fours and four maximums, is already a significant upgrade from a humble count of just 11 in eight innings combined last WPL. From an underwhelming aggregate of 90 runs in 2023, Deepti is this year's leading run-scorer for the Warriorz with a tally of 207 at an average hovering around 70 (albeit aided by a couple of not-outs lower down the order).
The upswing in Deepti's batting returns are not just good signs for UPW or India in the long run, but also a testament to her hunger to keep learning no matter the age or the number of years of experience under the belt. Much like how her historic hat-trick went unnoticed on Friday, Deepti's match-turning contributions in the shortest format have often flown under the radar while the shortcomings, mostly with the bat, have led to questions over her spot in any first-choice XI. But trust Deepti to shun the outside noise and let her performances do the talking, repeatedly.
"A hattrick and a fifty in the same game? That's very well played, Deepti," Harris told the media after being made aware of Deepti's phenomenal feat. "I didn't realise that at all. We'll definitely be celebrating that with her.
"We might have some cake. A lot of cake. Actually, she's going to get a full cake to the face tonight to celebrate that. That was outstanding!"
With the eagerness to evolve with the changing demands of the format, Deepti has shown she's ready to challenge her current valuation in T20 cricket.
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