RCB Vs DC: How Smriti Mandhana Tactically Outclassed DC Batters In WPL Match?

Anurag Dasgupta

How Mandhana outclassed DC [Source: https://www.wplt20.com]How Mandhana outclassed DC [Source: https://www.wplt20.com]

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The Delhi Capitals Vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Women's Premier League (WPL) match lived upto its hype as the defending champions outclassed last year's finalists and the mission was led by skipper Smriti Mandhana and how her captaincy made the difference in the first innings.

RCB won the first match of the tournament, but the captaincy and their bowling was not upto the mark and something had to change, which did.

How Mandhana outclassed DC batters

Over the years, Mandhana is known for being a laidback captain as she allows things to happen, however, in the clash Vs DC, she had a different approach about it. The RCB skipper was aggressive with her field setups and it forced DC batters to play false shots, especially Shafali Verma, who chipped one straight to Mandhana in the very first over.

The brilliant utilization of Renuka Thakur

The pitch had something for the fast bowlers in the early going and RCB had Renuka Thakur in their team, who is known for her swing bowling. Interestingly, RCB don't have a death overs specialist, but instead of saving Thakur for the last few overs, Mandhana utilised her skills in the power-play and allowed her to bowl maximum overs early on and the pace bowler rewarded her skipper with figures of 3 for 23 in 4 overs.

The utilization of spinners to perfection

Spinner
Wickets
Economy
Ekta Bisht28.75
Georgia Wareham3
6.25

Mandhana knew that DC batters in general love pace on the bat, and as the game progressed, the pitch eased out and became good for batting.

To counter it, Mandhana utilised spin from both ends as Georgia Wareham and Ekta Bisht tightened the screws on the scoring rate and shared 5 wickets amongst them. Wareham was the one who took the prized wicket of Jemimah Rodrigues and it turned out to be the difference maker between a huge score and a decent total.

Mandhana set an attacking field for both the spinners, which forced DC batters to play reckless shots and they threw their wickets away as the spin duo ran riot.