On Monday, March 13, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) continued their miserable run in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 when they lost to Delhi Capitals (DC) by six wickets in match number 11.
RCB were restricted to 150/4 at the DY Patil Sports Academy in Mumbai after being asked to bat first after losing the toss. Ellyse Perry’s impressive knocks of 67 off 52 and Richa Ghosh’s 37 off 16 helped them recover from 63/3.
However, Bangalore did not score enough runs as Delhi chased the target in 19.4 overs. Megan Schutt defeated Shafali Verma for a golden duck, giving the bowling team hope. With their fifth consecutive defeat to Delhi, RCB is effectively out of the WPL 2023. They are mathematically unlikely to be selected for the Eliminator.
We look at three areas where the franchise has failed since their disastrous performance in WPL 2023.
#1 Smriti Mandhana’s bad form
There was a lot of hype and expectation when Royal Challengers Bangalore purchased Smriti Mandhana at the WPL 2023 auction for 3.4 crore, the most expensive purchase.
After all, Mandhana and captain Harmanpreet Kaur are the two most well-known women’s cricket players in India at the moment. Tragically, for RCB, it has been a seriously disappointment.
She has only scored 88 runs in five matches, with a meager strike rate of 117.33 and an average of 17.60. Mandhana scored 35 runs off 23 in Bangalore’s first match against Delhi of the WPL 2023 season.
Nonetheless, it has generally gone downhill for her since. She has achieved scores of 23, 18, 4, and 8 in subsequent matches.
She only hit one four and faced 15 balls for her eight runs in the match against Delhi on Monday.
The RCB had high hopes for their captain, who starts the innings, to get off to a fast start. However, Mandhana hasn’t been able to pull it off, and Bangalore have been off to a bad start.
#2 The inability of RCB batters to convert starts
While some of the other RCB batters have performed better than Mandhana, the franchise’s batting unit has also failed.
They haven’t been able to build on good starts in most games. After a very sluggish first half in their most recent match against Delhi, they were forced to catch up.
In a nutshell, Bangalore’s batting has not performed well in any of their 2023 WPL matches thus far.
Taking a gander at individual exhibitions, Ellyse Perry has scored 195 runs from five games at a normal of 48.75 and a strike pace of 137.32, with two fifties.
However, there haven’t been many other people’s performances. Except for a half-century against the Gujarat Giants (GG), Sophie Devine has scored 153 runs but has not won any of her starts.
Ghosh had not done much before the last match against Delhi, but he made an excellent cameo. Additionally, Heather Knight has scored two impressive 30s.
Significantly more was required from the unique pair. RCB have not really gelled as a batting unit.
#3 Discipline issues in bowling
RCB’s bowling attack was regarded as one of the competition’s best going into WPL 2023. Megan Schutt, Ellyse Perry, Renuka Singh, and Sophie Devine are demonstrated entertainers. However, Bangalore’s bowling has also been a major letdown, just like the batting.
In two of their five matches, the bowlers have surrendered more than 200 runs. Additionally, they have not claimed a sufficient number of wickets, posing a problem for Mandhana as captain.
RCB only took two wickets in 20 overs in their first match, and they only took one in their second match against Mumbai Indians (MI).
Despite taking seven wickets in the match against Gujarat, Bangalore lost 201 runs.
Despite having only 138 runs to defend against UP Warriorz (UPW), the franchise’s performance was rather lackluster, with no wickets taken in 13 overs.