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- By Gurmeet Batra
- Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:14 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
RCB vs MI WPL 2026: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) captain Smriti Mandhana won the toss and opted to bowl against Mumbai Indians in their Women's Premier League (WPL) 2026 match at the BCA Stadium, Kotambi in Vadodara on Monday.
With the spectre of early elimination hanging over them, defending champions Mumbai Indians, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, are reeling, having won just two of six matches.
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RCB are riding high on a five-match winning streak, having secured a playoff spot and are now eyeing a direct final berth.
Speaking at the time of toss Smriti Mandhana said, "We’d like to field first today. Dew has been a big factor at Baroda and the wicket has played differently in almost every match. As a batting unit, it’s good to know what to expect. A lot of learnings, especially around batting, understanding and assessing situations quickly as a top order and knowing what our par score is. That’s going to be extremely important going forward in the tournament. Of course, we also need to field and bowl in the right areas, which we did extremely well in the first five matches."
"There was a bump in the road last game, but we’d like to rectify those mistakes. We’ve had a little experience over the last 10 days, but you can’t come prepared assuming the wicket will play a certain way because it’s been different every game. We’ll have to see how the first couple of overs go, assess it, get together and communicate well with each other. Same eleven for us today," she added.
MI captain Harmanpreet Kaur said, "Looking at the conditions and how previous matches have gone, we wanted to bowl first. But whatever comes our way, it’s a very important match for us. Playing with a positive approach is the key today, that's more important. We spent some really good quality time together and had very productive meetings. Hopefully, whatever we discussed and trained on over the last few days, we’ll execute it out there. Today we have one change - Amelia Kerr is back in the side, and Carey misses out due to injury. It’s an important game, we’re going with our best eleven and hopefully we’ll play positive cricket."
RCB vs MI Playing XIs
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women (Playing XI): Grace Harris, Smriti Mandhana(c), Georgia Voll, Gautami Naik, Richa Ghosh(w), Radha Yadav, Nadine de Klerk, Arundhati Reddy, Sayali Satghare, Shreyanka Patil, Lauren Bell.
Mumbai Indians Women (Playing XI): Sajeevan Sajana, Hayley Matthews, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Amelia Kerr, Rahila Firdous(w), Amanjot Kaur, Sanskriti Gupta, Vaishnavi Sharma, Shabnim Ismail, Poonam Khemnar.