GG vs MI, WPL 2023: 3 player battles to watch out for

The Mumbai Indians (MI) and the Gujarat Giants (GG) will lock horns in the opening encounter of the Women's Premier League (WPL) 2023 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on Saturday.

The long wait for the WPL is finally over as some fine domestic players will rub shoulders with the best overseas stars in the women's game. The two teams definitely have some big names that will go head-to-head and have had some sort of success when it comes to certain match-ups.

On that note, let's take a look at three such match-ups that could define the flow of the opening game of WPL 2023:

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#3 Hayley Matthews vs Ashleigh Gardner

MI seemed to have pulled off an absolute steal when they bagged the services of West Indies skipper Hayley Matthews for WPL 2023 for just INR 40 lakh. She is an explosive batter who could be crucial for her team to set the tone in the powerplay.

But GG have a powerplay specialist in the form of Ashleigh Gardner, who has had a bit of success against Matthews in the past. Matthews has scored just 31 runs off 37 balls from Gardner and has been dismissed twice. How she deals with the off-spinner in the powerplay will be an interesting battle to look forward to.

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#2 Harmanpreet Kaur vs Annabel Sutherland

Amidst superstar names like Hayley Matthews and Nat Sciver-Brunt in the MI batting line-up, captain Harmanpreet Kaur will be the glue that will hold the middle-order together. She is fresh off an incredible half-century against Australia in the Women's T20 World Cup semifinal, albeit in a losing cause.

GG will need to stop Harmanpreet from getting set and they do have a match-up for her in Annabel Sutherland. In all T20 cricket, Harmanpreet scored just 22 runs in the 30 balls that she faced off Sutherland and the pacer has dismissed her thrice. She will be key to Gujarat stopping the MI skipper in her tracks.

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#1 Beth Mooney vs Issy Wong

GG captain Beth Mooney just loved playing against India and showed in the T20I series here last year how the pitches in Mumbai suited her game. She will be a huge threat for MI in this game and understandably so, Harmanpreet and co. will need to devise a plan to stop her in the powerplay itself.

Mooney has scored 28 runs off just 16 balls against England pacer Issy Wong. However, Wong has dismissed Mooney once and could be MI's trump card to stop the southpaw. Both will fancy going hard at each other and that's what makes this match-up interesting in the opening game of WPL 2023.