Richa Ghosh To Open With Mandhana, Cross To Debut; RCB's Strongest XI For WPL 2025

Bhargav Dixit∙ Updated: Dec 15 2024, 9:51 PM

RCB celebrate a win. [Source: @ImTanujSingh]RCB celebrate a win. [Source: @ImTanujSingh]

Defending champions Royal Challengers Bangalore exhausted their quota of 18 players by adding four new names to their roaster during the recently concluded auction for the third season of the Women’s Premier League. With them spending a total of INR 1.5 crore today, they’ve managed to save INR 1.75 crore for themselves.

For a champion team which retained most of its core, one doesn’t expect a lot of chopping and changing to the Playing XI. However, with a year between the two seasons, RCB would be tempted to upgrade owing to meet the modern demand of the T20 format.

Richa Ghosh To Open For RCB

Having opened the batting for the first time in her T20 career during Women’s Asia Cup 2022, wicket-keeper batter Richa Ghosh hasn’t opened in the format since then. With Shafali Verma dropped from both India’s limited-overs squads, Ghosh was promoted to open twice in ODIs during the recently concluded tour of Australia.

In all honesty, opening the batting with Ghosh especially in the shortest format wouldn’t be a bad idea at all. Having flourished alongside Bangalore captain Smriti Mandhana in her maiden ODI innings as an opener a week ago, it could well be the start of something special for her.

More than capable of playing the big shots in any given situation, Ghosh attacking the best of bowlers during fielding restrictions wouldn’t be surprising by any means.

Sophie Devine At No. 4

New Zealand captain Sophie Devine had partnered Mandhana at the top of the order six times out of 10 matches during WPL 2024. The aforementioned promotion for Ghosh will allow Devine to bat at No. 4 – a position where she has batted the most this year. Readers must note that Devine also batted at No. 4 during her most recent captaincy stint for Perth Scorchers in the Women’s Big Bash League.

Second-highest T20 run-scorer, it is true that the 35-year-old has achieved this distinction primarily because of opening the innings but, apart from the top, No. 4 is where she has batted the most. More importantly, as mentioned above, Royal Challengers wouldn’t mind changing with time.

WPL Debut For Kate Cross

Having warmed the bench for one full season, it is high time RCB hand a WPL debut to veteran England pacer Kate Cross. In addition to Cross’ skills and experience, a primary reason why she should be included into Bangalore’s Playing XI is their pressing need for someone to partner Renuka Singh Thakur with the new ball.

In spite of reliable medium-pace options in Ellyse Perry and Devine, it is not advisable for any team to take the field with a lone specialist pacer. With WPL teams allowed to field five overseas players in a Playing XI, Mandhana would surely benefit from having Cross at her disposal.

RCB's Strongest XI For WPL 2025

1) Richa Ghosh (wk) 
2) Smriti Mandhana (c)
3) Ellyse Perry
4) Sophie Devine
5) Sabbhineni Meghana
6) Sophie Molineux
7) Georgia Wareham
8) Shreyanka Patil
9) Kate Cross
10) Asha Sobhana
11) Renuka Singh Thakur