Nineteen-year-old Australian Lucy Hamilton made a promising start to her Women’s Premier League career, producing a valiant lower-order contribution on debut for the Delhi Capitals in its WPL 2026 fixture against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Saturday.
Put under early pressure after slipping to 10 for 4, the Capitals showed strong character to recover and post a competitive total of 166.
Opener Shafali Verma led the fightback with a composed 62 off 41 deliveries, while Hamilton, batting at number nine, provided crucial late momentum with a quickfire 36 off just 19 balls, striking three fours and the same number of sixes to lift the Capitals to a defendable score.
Reflecting on her debut appearance and contributing under pressure, Hamilton said, “It was really special to get that opportunity and be out there for my first game. Obviously, making your debut is always a big moment, and from where we were early on, the message was just to keep fighting and take it as deep as we possibly could. I was just trying to stay calm, back my strengths, and do whatever I could for the team in that situation.”
Speaking about her partnership with Shafali during the recovery phase, the left arm quick added, “With Shafali, it was mainly about clear communication and rotating the strike. She was striking the ball incredibly well, so the plan was to get her on strike as much as possible and just support her at the other end. From being 10 for 4 to putting up a total like that showed a lot of character and fight from the group.”
On her experience of playing in the WPL and adapting to Indian conditions, Hamilton said, “It’s been a really exciting experience so far. Conditions here are definitely a bit different compared to Australia, so adapting has been important. Training has helped a lot in understanding how precise you need to be with your lines and lengths, especially with slightly smaller grounds and good batting surfaces. It’s about making things as challenging as you can for the batters.”
Delhi Capitals was unable to defend the total on the night as Royal Challengers Bengaluru completed the chase, but Hamilton felt there were positives to carry forward.
“You can take something away from every game. We were put under pressure early, but the way everyone responded and fought back to post a competitive total was really encouraging. It was a good contest, and although we were on the wrong end of it today, there are a lot of positives to take forward.”
Delhi Capitals’ next match is against the Mumbai Indians at the BCA Stadium in Vadodara on Tuesday.
Comments are closed.