There was nothing especially wrong with Nat Sciver-Brunt’s first ball of this Women’s Premier League season. Maybe it was maybe slightly short, but it was really a length delivery honing in on the stumps, the type that most opening batters might greet with a solid defence to get an innings underway.

Not Grace Harris though.

Harris responded by shovelling the ball into the leg-side so hard that the square leg fielder barely had time to see it as it rocketed away for four, and in doing so, kickstarted an opening partnership that has been responsible for some of the most electrifying stroke-making the league has seen this year.

Representing Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Harris and Smriti Mandhana have been the league’s most prolific opening partnership, scoring 383 runs at a run-rate of 10.21 and at times all but ending matches themselves as RCB comfortably topped the league phase of the tournament and earned itself a direct spot in the final.

All the more amusing then, that Harris arrived in India not expecting to be open. She is a regular opener for the Brisbane Heat in the Women’s Big Bash League and opened for UP Warriorz as well, but the all-rounder was expecting to be used in the lower-order role she plays for Australia before head coach Malolan Rangarajan told her otherwise.

“He came up to me at a training session and was like, “you’re going to open the batting for now to start with. And then if we feel like we need to move things around, we’ll change up,” Harris recalled at a media interaction ahead of the final. “I said to him that I don’t have to bat in a particular spot. I just simply need to be given a role.”

That role came down to a phrase Harris repeats more than once. “Go for the cheese, not the cat, which is, take the extra risk, don’t be afraid of getting out.”

The 32-year-old has taken that to heart. Her PowerPlay strike-rate, 172, is the highest for any batter to have played at least 25 balls in the first six overs, and her overall strike-rate in the tournament is 180.58, is comfortably the highest in the top 20 run-scorers in the tournament.

Maximising the first six overs with only two fielders back has been a crucial part of Harris’ game.

“The way that I kind of approach it in PowerPlay compared to outside of the PowerPlay is you’ve only got two fielders out. You’ll face a swinging delivery or a seaming delivery more than changes of pace.

So, being able to kind of calculate the risk of what is essentially, you know, a 40 metre hit or a 30 metre hit will get you more runs sometimes than trying to hit it 78 metres, because you’ve only got the two out, you legitimately only need to clear the ring fielders. Sometimes you make good enough contact and it flies away.

So, you kind of make sure that you set up for the ball that does move, but at the same time hit the ball that does move into the middle of your bat. If it comes off, it comes off. But if it doesn’t, at least try and make it a good ball to get you out, not necessarily a rubbish, hacky kind of shot,” she explained.

Playing the aggressor is a role that has risk and volatility built into it, and Harris’ returns reflect that. Her individual season (228 runs at 28.50) has been blistering at times, but has featured a few cheap dismissals to the new moving ball as well.

In a tightly-packed tournament like WPL where games come thick and fast (RCB played three games in four days at one point), maintaining an objectivity about her dismissals has been crucial for Harris.

“I try to keep an objectiveness to how I’m getting out. If I pick the right shot to the right ball, that’s a tick. If I didn’t execute it, then that’s where I’d just say unlucky or, you know, be better, but if I’ve definitely played the wrong shot, then I go and I say to the coaches, no, we need to work on this,” Harris explained.

Harris is phlegmatic about the instability that comes with her role. “T20 cricket is so fickle, and the role that I play is so inconsistent that you kind of can’t keep hanging on the last innings, you can’t strike it at 200 consistently. You’re only going to win, you know, three, four games at most,” she reflected. “You’re not going to hit 50 every time. And if they want me to be more consistent, I’d definitely have to drop that strike rate and drop that impact.”

“Having that kind of mental clarity with the coaches, that’s what really helps you think clearly when you’re then out in the middle,” Harris further explained. “And then it’s just trying to problem solve on the fly, based on conditions.”

Harris will have one more opportunity to make a telling impact for RCB when it takes on Delhi Capitals in the final of the tournament on Thursday. Finals are notoriously impossible to predict, but one thing is for sure – when Grace Harris swaggers out to bat, she’ll be going for the cheese, and not the cat.

Published on Feb 04, 2026