WPL winner Shreyanka Patil: There was healthy competition with Asha, helped RCB

New Delhi, Mar 19 (PTI) Shreyanka Patil, the purple cap winner of WPL 2024, believes her healthy competition with Asha Shobhna helped Royal Challengers Bangalore in getting wickets at crucial junctures, paving the way for the team's title triumph.

While Shreyanka grabbed the maximum wickets (13), Asha was joint second with 12 scalps alongside Sophie Molineux.

"She has given me confidence with healthy competition. She is just amazing under pressure, she is clear about what to do. That helped the team's cause," Shreyanka told PTI in an interview.

Under Smriti Mandhana's leadership, RCB beat Delhi Capitals by eights wickets to win the WPL title here on Sunday.

On becoming the emerging player of the tournament and earning the purple cap, she said: "If you had asked me at the start of the tournament, I wouldn't know what to answer, but the way I came back, I am happy with my performance." RCB did extremely well to grab nine Delhi Capitals wickets for just 43 runs and bowl their opponents out for 113.

Asked about her captain Mandhana's plan in the death overs during the course of the tournament, Shreyanka said, "We did plan, every match we sit back as a team, we just plan few things and we try and execute that plan but she has always trusted me.

"Be it last year, when I did well for the team, she had that trust and then when we trained in Bangalore, the pre-season, she just said that you are our main go-to death bowler, so just keep doing it.

"I trust in you, so bowling in death overs is not that easy, you are going to get hit, you have to be ready for that, the way you come back is what matters." Shreyanka has two four-wicket hauls in the WPL, both against Capitals. She took 4/26 last Sunday and bettered her figures with 4/12 in the final.

When asked about playing an extra match in Delhi, she said: "We really wanted to top the table, but then there were some hiccups in the tournament, but we didn't mind playing another match and winning that game and just facing that crowd again.

"Because we didn't know that the crowd in Delhi was going to be massive. The way we got the fans, in RCB we all know that we all expected that, but coming to Delhi and getting some fanbase here was just amazing." She is the first bowler to bag four or more wickets more than once in the WPL.

On playing against medical advice, she said: "I trust my medical system here, they wanted to put me back on the field. I missed two matches, they didn't let me play, they said I have to do icing and care therapy.

"They were just on my back and I was a little irritated, but then the way they looked after me, I think all credit goes to the medical team. They just wanted to put me back on the field because it matters a lot." PTI