WPL: Royal Challengers Bangalore post maiden win by defeating UP Warriroz

Perry (3/16) led the RCB bowling efforts to bowl out Warriorz for 135 while Kanika Ahuja’s 30-ball 46 and Richa Ghosh’s 31 not out helped the side chase it down by the end of the 18th over in a much-awaited win.

Ahuja and Ghosh had joined forces at a stage from where the game could have gone either way, with RCB having lost four wickets with 60 runs on the board and a tricky challenge in front of them.

But the two young batters played with a lot of conviction and command, not allowing UP Warriorz any opportunity to make further inroads until they had ensured a win for their side.

RCB had a poor start, losing the in-form Sophie Devine for 14 after early aggression, and captain Smriti Mandhana (0), who had to endure yet another flop show with the bat. The RCB captain was cleaned up by Deepti Sharma off the third ball she faced.

Devika Vaidya got the key breakthrough in the seventh over getting Perry (10) caught by Sophie Ecclestone and in the ninth, Deepti Sharma removed the dangerous Heather Knight (24), caught by Kiran Navgire, with 60 runs on the board.

In the first half of the game, Perry was magnificent with the ball for RCB despite being introduced late.

The right-arm seamer halted UP Warriorz’s charge when the pair of Grace Harris (46) and Deepti (22) threatened to take the game away from RCB, and also accounted for Shweta Sehrawat (6) to record figures of 4-0-16-3.

Harris missed a deserving half-century, falling for 46 off 32 balls with five fours and two sixes.

Harris and Deepti led the recovery for UP Warriorz tottering at one stage at 31/5 with a brisk 69-run stand that took them past the 100-run mark. Harris made most of a lifeline given by Richa Ghosh, who missed a regulation stumping off Sobhana Asha when the batter was only on nine.

Devine set the tone in RCB’s favour with two wickets in the first over to return with 4-0-23-2, Sobhana Asha got plenty of turn during a largely impactful 4-0-27-2 and Megan Schutt produced a measly spell of 4-0-21-1 to cap off a combined bowling show for RCB.

Earlier before the start of the contest, the former RCB captain Virat Kohli met the team and also had a talk with Mandhana, whose torrid run with the bat continued.

In their previous meeting at the Brabourne Stadium on March 10, UP Warriorz had crushed RCB by a massive 10 wickets in a one-sided game with Alyssa Healy scoring a stunning 96 not out in the winning cause.

With inputs from PTI