The Royal Challengers Bangalore ended their home leg of the Women’s Premier League 2024 season with a comfortable 23-run win over the UP Warriorz on Monday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore, or RCB, put up a strong total of 198/3 in the first innings before restricting the Warriorz to 175/8 at the end of 20 overs.
The win for the hosts ended the Bangalore team’s run of two consecutive losses while also ending the Warriorz’s run of two successive wins.
Central to RCB’s win on Monday was the impressive hitting by their captain Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry in the first innings – both scoring half-centuries in their knocks.
Alyssa Healy won the toss for the Warriorz and decided to bowl first.
Mandhana and S Meghana got off to a quick start, racing to a 50-run partnership in the sixth over before the latter was dismissed for 28 off 21. Perry then came out to the middle to join the captain, as the duo put on a devastating 95-run partnership off 64 deliveries.
A few sloppy moments in the field handed Mandhana two reprieves. Chamari Athapaththu lost sight of the ball in a shot Mandhana skied. Tthe Sri Lankan captain eventually put in an insufficient one-handed effort for the catch but put it down with Mandhana on 28.
On the next ball Mandhana faced, batting on 29, she went down the track but missed the ball. Healy, the wicketkeeper also missed the ball and Mandhana got away with what could have been a straight-forward stumping.
Eventually, the left-handed India batter went on to score a player of the match award-winning 80 off 50, with 10 boundaries and three sixes. She was eventually dismissed off the bowling of Deepti Sharma, with Poonam Khemnar taking an impressive catch at deep midwicket.
Mandhana’s innings however did help her get to the top of the highest run-scorers chart so far this season.
Meanwhile, Perry was just as impressive, hitting the ball cleanly in her innings of 57 off 37, which included four boundaries and just as many sixes. One of the sixes broke the window of a promotional car placed in the midwicket region.
Eventually she too would be dismissed with Khemnar taking another good catch in the deep.
Richa Ghosh then came in with a quick cameo of 21 from 10 deliveries to help the RCB get to 198/3 after 20 overs.
Also read: Kiran Navgire, UP Warriorz’s finisher, shines brightly at the top of the order
The Warriorz’s chase did not get off to a good start with Renuka Singh Thakur bowling a maiden in the first over of the second innings. Kiran Navgire and Alyssa Healy however, picked up the pace soon enough.
Eventually, RCB got the breakthrough with the hard-hitting Navgire (18 off 11) being caught smartly by Georgia Wareham, who was running backwards from her mid-on position.
Healy continued to trouble the RCB bowlers, but was losing partners at the other end regularly.
With the pressure building up on the captain, she came out of her crease looking for a big hit but was stumped out by Ghosh on 55 off 38, with seven boundaries and three sixes.
Sharma and Khemnar came up with decent cameos of 33 off 22 and 31 off 24 respectively – both batters hitting four fours and one six each. But with the scoreboard pressure and the RCB bowlers offering little to the batters, the hosts held on to claim their third win in five matches.
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