The start of the Women’s Premier League 2026, being played on Friday, January 09, was nothing special for Mumbai Indians and its impact was clearly visible on the performance of opening batsman Amelia Kerr. In this match being played against RCB at DY Patil Stadium, New Zealand all-rounder Amelia Kerr had to wait a long time to open her account of runs.

In the absence of Hayley Matthews, Amelia Kerr was given the responsibility of opening, but she failed to take advantage of the powerplay. RCB fast bowler Lauren Bell put pressure on Kerr with precise line-length and did not allow him to score runs for the first 10 balls.

Amelia Kerr opened her account on the 11th ball and with this she joined the list of batsmen who scored the first run after playing the most number of balls in WPL history. Only Grace Harris is ahead of her in this unwanted list, who opened her account after 15 balls in 2024.

Batsman who played most balls to open account in WPL

Grace Harris – 15 balls

• (UP Warriors vs Mumbai Indians, Delhi – 2024)

Amelia Kerr – 11 balls

• (Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers Bangalore, Navi Mumbai – 2026)

Amelia Kerr became the victim of Lauren Bell in this match by scoring only 4 runs in 11 balls. His early dismissal also affected the powerplay of Mumbai Indians and the team could score only 34 runs in the first six overs.

Talking about the match, after this slow start, there was an important partnership of 82 runs in 49 balls for the 5th wicket between Nicola Carey (29 balls, 40 runs) and Sajeevan Sajna (25 balls, 45 runs), on the basis of which Mumbai Indians scored 154 runs losing 6 wickets in 20 overs.

Nadine de Klerk bowled brilliantly for RCB and took 4 wickets, while Lauren Bell and Shreyanka Patil got 1-1 success.