Delhi Capitals captain Meg Lanning’s brilliant fifty and a cunning spell from spinner Jess Jonassen guided their side to a comfortable 25-run victory over Gujarat Giants on Sunday. Chasing a competitive 164, the Giants never found their momentum going as they lost early wickets. Despite Ashleigh Gardener’s fine knock of 40, the Giants crashed to their fourth defeat on the bounce. Delhi Capitals, on the other hand, propelled to the top of the table with six points, registering their third win on the trot.

Earlier, Lanning used her experience and built a couple of good partnerships to score quick runs after the Giants opted to bowl first. Shafali Verma (13) started aggressively hitting Tanuja Kanwar for a six and a four, but her cameo ended very soon. Verma’s dismissal brought Lanning and in-form Alice Capsey together and both stitched a fine 38-run partnership for the second wicket, taking Delhi to 51/1 in powerplay overs. Meghna starred with a four-wicket haul for the Giants.

Meghna Singh broke the partnership by dismissing Capsey (27). However, Jemimah Rodrigues and Lanning added 47 runs for the third wicket before Meghna removed well-settled Lanning. The Australian batter, who brought up her fifty in 39 balls, departed after her slash off Meghna settled in the hands of Hemalatha. Delhi’s attempt to up the scoring rate failed as they lost regular wickets, Annabel Sutherland’s 20 helped DC to reach 163/8 in 20 overs.

The Giants’ chase had a shaky start as Shikha Pandey cleaned up Laura Wolvaardt for a duck. But the Giants found some flow as captain Beth Mooney and Phoebe Litchfield combined to smash 15 runs in the fourth over. However, they stumbled against Jonassen and the Australian spinner dismissed both Mooney (12) and Litchfield (15) in the fifth over. The Giants kept losing wickets regularly and eventually, lost the game.