RCB captain Smriti Mandhana was overwhelmed by the tremendous crowd support during the inaugural 2024 season of her team’s WPL.
Bengaluru witnessed a dramatic match when Royal Challengers Bangalore registered a narrow two-run win against UP Warriors in the opening match of their WPL 2024 season at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday. Every element of entertainment was added to the match like masala, Drama and action were present and its good effect was visible from the very beginning.
Given the format of the second season of the Women’s Premier League in the two cities – Bengaluru and New Delhi – where the tournament will be played, for the first time RCB got a chance to play in front of their home crowd and the reaction of the fans was palpable with the home crowd at the venue even before the first ball of the match was bowled.
UPW captain Alyssa Healy spoke to the presenter during the toss, where they won the toss and decided to field, followed by Smriti Mandhana, the RCB captain and Chinnaswamy, who received a warm welcome from the crowd. The Indian opening batsman was completely stunned by this reaction and looked quite overwhelmed.
When Smriti Mandhana questioned about her expectations from match
When Smriti Mandhana was questioned about expectations from the match, she initially couldn’t hear the question over the crowd noise and asked to repeat it. Eventually when she heard the question, she said, “I think it’s The wicket is the same as last night. If we play with all our might then a good score would be 175. Our campaign was not good last year. It is also important that all the players have to come forward to win the tournament.”
RCB’s start, after coming to bat first, faltered and they lost the wickets of Mandhana (13) and opener Sophie Devine (1) early. During this, Ellyse Perry (8) also got out cheaply and also failed to contribute but other plans
Sabbhineni belonged to Meghna and Richa Ghosh as they built a brilliant partnership to establish the foundation before the second strategic timeout ended. They would bat till the last over of the innings, when it looked like UPW would make a comeback and get a few wickets. did, which also included the wickets of Ghosh and Meghna.
Meghna scored 53 runs and scored a half-century with the help of seven fours and one six in 44 balls. Ghosh, meanwhile, scored 62 runs in 37 balls and completed his maiden half-century in just 31 balls. This is also ghosh’s best WPL score. Ghosh and Meghna helped RCB score 93 runs in the last 10 overs, taking the score to 157/6 in 20 overs.
Chasing Shobhana Asha’s 158, a brilliant UPW were restricted to 155/7 in 20 overs thanks to five wickets, with three wickets falling in their final over as RCB won by do runs.