WPL 2025/26, RCB-W vs UPW-W 18th Match Match Preview

Ravi Singh

4 hours ago

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Big picture – Whose WPL is it anyway?

In a WPL season that’s proving to be the most competitive for the remaining two knockouts spots since Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) qualified about 10 days ago, none of the other four teams is staying at the bottom of the table for too long nor are they putting up enough wins in a row to book the other two berths.

To add to the uncertainty, RCB have lost two in a row since sealing their knockouts spot, and their next opponent UP Warriorz (UPW) have lost their most prolific batter of this WPL – Phoebe Litchfield – to an injury. For Thursday, the odds are still in favour of RCB, who have a full-strength side at their disposal but must be feeling the jitters after being bundled for their lowest WPL score by Delhi Capitals (DC) before being reduced to 35 for 5 by Mumbai Indians (MI). While Richa Ghosh’s 90 off 50 ensured their net run rate didn’t take a massive beating and remains the best on the points table, their top five needs to click again on the Vadodara tracks to ensure they don’t end the league stage with three losses on the bounce.

UPW are at the other end of the spectrum, all in terms of points, net run rate and their qualification chances because even winning their remaining two games won’t ensure a knockouts spot for them. The injury to Litchfield couldn’t have come at a worse time for UPW, who are relying heavily on their overseas recruits for runs, yet again. They had started to turn their season around with two emphatic wins against MI, but they ran out of steam early in a chase of 154 against Gujarat Giants (GG) to slip to the bottom. Their four-pronged spin attack could be one of the toughest to face on the slower tracks in Vadodara but it’s their Indian batters who need to put their hand up to take some of the load off players like Meg Lanning, Chloe Tryon and Litchfield’s replacement on Thursday.

RCB may not feel the need to tinker with their side to get their A game right before the knockouts.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (probable) : 1 Grace Harris, 2 Smriti Mandhana (capt), 3 Georgia Voll, 4 Gautami Naik, 5 Richa Ghosh (wk), 6 Radha Yadav, 7 Nadine de Klerk, 8 Sayali Satghare, 9 Arundhati Reddy, 10 Shreyanka Patil, 11 Lauren Bell

UPW’s options to replace Litchfield in the XI are Deandra Dottin, Charlie Knott and Amy Jones, who has joined the squad and is available to play, among overseas names and G Trisha and Simran Shaikh from the Indian options. Will they extend the rope for Kiran Navgire at the top is a big question, given her average of 2.66 from all six games, having lasted just 24 balls in all.

UP Warriorz (probable): 1 Meg Lanning (capt), 2 Kiran Navgire/G Trisha, 3 Amy Jones, 4 Harleen Deol, 5 Chloe Tryon, 6 Deepti Sharma, 7 Shweta Sehrawat (wk), 8 Sophie Ecclestone, 9 Asha Sobhana, 10 Shikha Pandey, 11 Kranti Gaud

Harleen Deol has had a quiet couple of outings since her sequence of being retired out followed by a Player-of-the-Match performance in Navi Mumbai. With Litchfield gone and a new batter set to enter the XI, Deol will have to step up as a senior batter to keep UPW’s chances alive. Whether a slow pitch or a batter-friendly one on Thursday, she has shown all gears of the game this WPL to steer her team as an anchor and an enforcer and may have to repeat it against RCB.

Grace Harris last had an impactful innings in this tournament against UPW, and she has since been dismissed cheaply for 15, 9, 1, 1 and 17. Most of those came against the swinging ball early on and at times when the ball came on her bat slower in Vadodara. RCB might have given her the licence to go bang, bang but they may also want some runs from her to not leave most of the run-scoring at the top for Smriti Mandhana.

Vadodara finally saw some runs with MI nearly getting to 200 and then 175 nearly being chased down on Tuesday night by DC against GG. It’s possible the games there will get to see more runs as the knockouts approach. All 17 games so far have seen teams opting to chase mainly because of dew.

These two teams met over two weeks ago, when RCB had hammered UPW by nine wickets in chase of 144. Grace Harris has not crossed 20 since that game in five attempts.

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