Perry's masterclass leaves RCB feeling perfectly at home

The crowd in Delhi finally turned up for the WPL. A sea of blue had spread far and wide on the stands occupied by 22,834 people, likely the most attended match in the city this tournament. The jerseys were predominantly of Mumbai Indians, the flags were all blue too, some hawkers were even selling the India Test whites outside the ground, having probably come downhill from Dharamsala after an early finish. The colour of the three stripes on its sleeves? You guessed it.

You'd have to squint your eyes to spot even a hint of red at the ground. Even the few seats that were vacant in the first tier were painted blue. The music blaring in between overs was almost all Punjabi, as often is in Delhi, apart from some Hindi movie songs.

There was absolutely nothing the Royal Challengers Bangalore players could have looked at and thought of "home" on this neutral ground. The RCB fans that had flocked the stands in Bengaluru in the first leg were over 2000kms away now.

Ellyse Perry was seemingly unbothered by all this. What might have worked for her was that she had probably played more T20s at this ground - three at the 2016 T20 World Cup - than a lot of the Indian players featuring in the WPL. It showed in how she nearly struck three times in her first six balls after having gone wicketless this WPL.

First Sajeevan Sajana's catch wasn't taken at extra cover because the fielder lost the ball in the lights. Then she jagged one so sharply towards leg that Nat Sciver-Brunt played all over it and yet survived the lbw. The very next ball Sajana was almost caught at the circle. It was as if Perry knew all about this fresh pitch while others were still finding their way.

In her next over when Perry pegged Sajana's off stump back with a cutter, she jogged along expressionless towards extra cover, as if saying, "yeah, what else do you bowl on this pitch?" The crowd loved it and rooted for her as if she was from Saket and not Sydney.

The real celebration came when she had Harmanpreet Kaur chop on off a wide delivery that didn't even move off the pitch at a regulation 114.2kmh. Not expecting a wicket off it, Perry stuck her tongue out in between her lips that went from ear to ear. There was now a deafening roar from the same crowd that had cheered for Harmanpreet in a record chase a few days ago. The Australia allrounder whose jaw-dropping fielding in the deep had hurt India in the dying moments of the T20 World Cup semi-final a year ago was getting louder shrieks than the India captain, who bagged a duck.

Two balls later in her spell, Perry belted out an appeal for lbw after an inducker that was on a length perfect enough to beat Amelia Kerr. But Perry's finest gambit was the wicket of Amanjot Kaur. The price of the wicket not the most rewarding, but the manner of dismissal so spectacular that it could create the most poignant memory in Perry's T20 career of 366 matches. Delivered from just wide of the crease, she made the ball seam in so sharply that Amanjot was beaten by both pace and movement off the pitch to hear the ball rattle the stumps behind her.

Perry was making the ball talk on her own terms as if this was one of the seaming pitches in Australia (nevermind the lack of bounce). On a ground where even the slightest of width was pummeled by Harmanpreet and Richa Ghosh on successive nights over the weekend, Perry targeted the stumps with unflinching accuracy and perception of the right length.

She got all her six wickets bowled or lbw, and 22 of her 24 deliveries landed on good length or short-of-good-length to fetch her all her six wickets for just 11 runs. Perry's 6 for 15, the best figures in the WPL, was only her second five-wicket haul in T20s and the second-best bowling figures for an Australian in T20s.

"I've really enjoyed bowling," Perry said after being named the Player of the Match. "Sometimes I think I go years just getting walloped around the ground everywhere, and then every now and then it kind of goes my way. I've been working on it a little bit, especially with our coaches back home and kind of felt very suitable conditions for me tonight; the ball nipped around a little bit and it was really good fun."

Charlotte Edwards, head coach of Mumbai, has watched Perry's excellence since the allrounder's international debut nearly 17 years ago, and was also her second Test wicket. Having worked with her closely in the WBBL for Sydney Sixers - where Edwards is head coach and Perry the captain - the coach was "surprised" by the movement off the pitch in Delhi, but not by Perry's performance.

While recalling how she had called Perry "the greatest female player we're ever going to see," in 2019, Edwards said: "She's a wonderful cricketer and I'll still stand by what I said five years ago. She is the greatest player that I've seen play the game with bat and ball and in the field and as a person.

"What I admire most about Ellyse is the fact that it doesn't matter if she's playing club cricket or WPL or international cricket, she plays it the same way and that's really highly commendable and something I absolutely love."

Having restricted Mumbai to their second-lowest total, 113, Perry then chaperoned the "tricky chase" with an unbeaten 40 that also saw her fittingly smash the winning runs for four.

The music had now switched to English, the crowd was chanting "Aar See Bee, Aar See Bee" and "Perry, Perry" in turns, and now even a few RCB jerseys had turned up in Delhi of all the places.