Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bangalore have made a poor start to their campaign in the ongoing inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League. The Bangalore-based outfit have lost their first two games with the second defeat coming against Mumbai Indians on Monday night (March 6).
Harmanpreet Kaur-led Mumbai Indians thrashed RCB by 9 wickets to register their second consecutive win. Batting first, RCB started well with Sophie Devine and Smriti Mandhana adding 39 runs in just 25 balls before the latter departed for 16.
It triggered a collapse as RCB lost three more wickets inside the powerplay to find themselves reeling at 43 for 4 from 39 for 0. They kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were eventually all out for 155 in 18.4 overs. And while they managed to post a modest total, Mumbai Indians chased it down with utmost ease.
Hayley Matthews and Nat Sciver-Brunt scored unbeaten fifties to guide Mumbai to win in less than 15 overs. Matthews remained unbeaten on 77 off just 38 balls while Sciver-Brunt scored 55 off 29 balls.
Smriti Mandhana unhappy with the batters:
Following the game, Smriti Mandhana criticised the batters as she expressed disappointment over their failures to convert the starts. Several batters including the skipper got into 20s but just could not make the most of it as RCB’s innings did not get the impetus to post a big total.
“Yeah definitely. I think we would have loved to put more runs on the board on this batting wicket. We were below par tonight. We will comeback stronger,” Smriti Mandhana said in the post-match presentation
“Yeah definitely, I think a few batters got into the 20s including me but couldn’t bat on for longer periods. We need to bat long once we were set which we will do in the upcoming games. If any one of those batters was there till the 18th over, we would have ended on a decent score,” she added.
RCB’s next match is against Gujarat Giants. Just like RCB, Gujarat Giants have also lost their first two games and both the teams will be desperate to register their first win in the upcoming clash.
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