Mumbai Indians, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, will face arch-rivals Delhi Capitals in the final of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday.

While the Meg Lanning outfit will play their third final in as many seasons, Mumbai Indians will eye their second title after the WPL 2023 triumph.

This final is a repeat of the inaugural season where both the teams faced each other in the title clash.

The Capitals qualified for the finals directly after finishing on top of the points table following a marginally better net run-rate. The franchise have never won a title, be it the WPL or the IPL.

Mumbai Indians crushed Gujarat Giants’ hopes to qualify for their first final by beating them by 47 runs in the Eliminator on Thursday.

The all-round brilliance of Nat Sciver-Brunt and Hayley Matthews make Mumbai Indians the favourites.

Harmanpreet was confident that their familiarity with the conditions at the Brabourne Stadium will give them an edge over the Capitals.

Sciver-Brunt (493 runs, 9 wickets) and Matthews (17 wickets and 304 runs) currently top the batting and bowling charts, respectively, making them crucial to Mumbai Indians’ title charge.

Lanning is regarded one of the best captains and would be determined to add a WPL trophy to her decorated career and end the trophy drought.

For the Capitals, their chances would depend more on a very potent bowling attack with spinner Jess Jonassen and seasoned seamer Shikha Pandey, both of whom had 11 wickets each in the league stages.

In their last round-robin encounter, the Capitals restricted Mumbai Indians to 123/9, largely because of the efforts of Shikha and Jonassen who shared four wickets between them. The Capitals won that game by nine wickets.

“We’ve seen throughout the tournament that when teams get off to a good start with the bat, it becomes very difficult to pull them back. Our approach in the Powerplay is the same as everyone else’s... To put the opposition under pressure and get ahead. That’s exactly what Shafali (Verma) and I will aim to do in the final,” Lanning said.

She dismissed any concerns about the venue. “We’ve been watching the games, training here... It’s about assessing the conditions and adjusting.” With inputs from PTI