Smriti Mandhana's 43 from 27 balls and Renuka Singh Thakur's mingy spell of 2/14 paved the way for Royal Challengers Bangalore's thumping win over Gujarat Giants in the 5th match of the Women's Premier League at M Chinnaswamy Stadium. The Bangalore side came into this contest on the back of a nail-biting win over UP Warriorz while the Giants faced a drubbing in their opening encounter.
It was the same story for the Giants in their second match too. Struggling for big hits in the entirety of the innings, Beth Mooney's side were reduced to less than run-a-ball, 107 precisely, in their first innings. The Bangalore side cruised towards the target with Mandhana going all guns blazing with a 27-ball 43-run knock.
Renuka Singh was at her very best, troubling the batters. She got rid of the Gujarat captain Mooney with a delivery shaping into the right-hander to castle her on 8. Phoebe Litchfield and Harleen Deol laboured their way past the powerplay but Renuka struck back once again with a close stumping by Richa Ghosh to send them two down. Despite the Giants looking to hang around, neither they could step up the flow of runs, nor did they manage to keep wickets in hand, losing Veda Krishnamurthy, Harleen Deol and Ash Gardner inside 5 overs. Dayalan Hemalatha carried the team forward and tried going big with two fours and a six but could only get them past 100 with her 25-ball 31-run knock.
In the chase, RCB were off the blocks quickly with Mandhana hitting three fours in the first over of Lea Tahuhu before hitting three more in the next two overs. Despite Gardner got Sophie Devine, RCB were already at 37/1 after 4 overs. The flow of runs continues with Mandhana and Sabbhineni Meghana then punishing the bowlers. Tanuja Kanwar got the RCB skipper seven short of her first WPL fifty but that was the last joy for the of the night. Ellyse Perry and Meghana peppered boundaries to close an easy win, which took them to the top of the points table with 2 wins in 2 outings.
