Beyond the headlines: Gautam's consistency, Ahuja's weakness, & Perry's brilliance!
Beyond the headlines; RCB v/s GG, Game 12 of the WPL
The Gujarat Giants beat the Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 6 wickets. The visitors collapsed the hosts batting order, before Ash Gardner played a captain’s knock of 58 (31) to guide GG home.
But, what happened beyond the headlines?
Kashvee Gautam harassed Smriti Mandhana with a consistency that epitomised GG’s bowling plan, GG took Kanika Ahuja out of the game by only playing finger spin against her, & Ellyse Perry has scored 46.1% of the RCB middle order’s runs this year!
Kashvee Gautam epitomised GG’s smart bowling
Written by Tarutr Malhotra.
The GG bowling unit learned their lessons after the first game against RCB. Their poor bowling execution let the defending champs chase down a WPL record 201 runs on match day one, but GG restricted RCB to just 125 tonight.
Kashvee Gautam epitomised this improvement. In the first match, she conceded 22 runs in 2 overs. Tonight, she went for just 17 runs in 4 overs, plus 13 dots and the important wicket of Richa Ghosh. However, her strangling of Smriti Mandhana in the powerplay was the highlight of the night.
Gautam was extremely consistent against the RCB captain. Bowling from round the wicket, she pitched it at the mid stump line and swung it away from the left hander’s off stump. All 11 balls to Mandhana were paced between 104.7 to 108.4 kph.
Additionally, Gautam added a degree of risk by picking up 2.3 degrees of swing on average tonight. The tournament average for swing is just 1.0 degrees.
Mandhana swung and missed on 5 of the 11 deliveries she faced against Gautam, including on a free hit! In all, Mandhana scored 2 of 11 against Gautam, and just 10 (20) in the powerplay overs (and overall) tonight.
For a sense of how antithetical this spell is to Mandhana’s career, you just need to look at the numbers. Before tonight, Mandhana averaged 36.8 at a strike rate of 137 against right arm seamers in the WPL, and a cumulative 73 runs at a strike rate of 155.3 in all powerplay overs during the 2025 WPL.
But Gautam, like the entire GG bowling unit, bowled tight and consistent lines, and restricted RCB to just 125 - their joint lowest score in the WPL.
Data from ESPNcricinfo, Cricmetric & the Jio broadcast.
GG seem to have researched Kanika Ahuja
Written by Shayan Ahmad Khan. You can follow him on Twitter.
Two weeks ago, Kanika Ahuja scored 30* (13) to guide RCB to a record 201-run chase against GG. Tonight, she could only muster 33 (28) as RCB collapsed to a total of 125 runs. What happened?
Before today’s innings, Kanika Ahuja’s best numbers in the WPL came when facing right-arm seam (38 runs off 19 balls, and 1 dismissal) & leg spin (34 off 22, and 1 dismissal).
But, both kinds of finger spin – off spin (33 off 31, 3 dismissals) & left-arm finger spin (31 off 26, 1 dismissal) – have slowed her down.
Tonight, Ahuja was on 3 (8) before Priya Mishra’s leg spin – her favourable matchup – was brought on. The left-hander scored 11 (3) in the over, including a 4 and a 6 in the long off region. Both the deliveries were outside off and on the fuller side, as Ahuja used her feet to hit the 4 off a 79.0 kph delivery and a 6 off the slower 72.5 kph ball.
Against off spin and left-arm finger spin, Ahuja scored 17 runs off 19 deliveries tonight, with just one 6 against Ash Gardner – again using her feet off a flighted delivery. Ahuja couldn’t get away any boundaries against Tanuja Kanwar, and went for just 7 (11) against her. Kanwar bowled three slower deliveries to Ahuja at sub-70 kph, resulting in three false shots; two dots and her wicket.
Earlier this season, Ahuja played a pivotal role against GG in a record run-chase, scoring 30* (13) as RCB chased down 201. In that game she scored 17 (6) versus Sayali Sathgare and 11 (5) versus Deandra Dottin - both right arm pacers. Sathgare was dropped tonight, while Dottin was kept out of the bowling when Ahuja was batting.
The Gujarat Giants clearly did their homework on RCB to ensure they didn’t get stuck with another middle order blitz.
Data from Cricmetric.
RCB’s middle order is too reliant on Ellyse Perry
Written by Ritwika Dhar. You can follow her on Twitter.
RCB has been the most aggressive batting units in the WPL, amassing 669 runs in 4 games at an average of 35.21 and a strike rate of 148.
235 of those runs (35.12% of RCB’s total) have come from the bat of Ellyse Perry, the WPL’s all time highest run scorer. She’s been in sublime touch, averaging 117.50 at a blistering strike rate of 160.95.
Today was a test of what RCB could do without her, after Perry fell for her first duck in three WPL seasons. RCB barely scrambled to 125, their joint lowest total. Danni Wyatt-Hodge got out before Perry, and Smriti Mandhana struggled to 10 runs before getting out, so the onus was on the previously well-protected middle order.
In RCB’s last two games against MI and UP, Perry scored 171 runs off 99 balls. The rest of RCB’s middle order (positions 4 to 7) scored 60 runs off 60 balls.
Kanika Ahuja and Raghvi Bist provided some much-needed resistance tonight, stitching together a 48-run stand off 37 balls between the 6th and 12th overs. But a foolish run out and an unnecessary shot saw both out within 7 balls of each, leaving RCB teetering at 99-6.
Richa Ghosh, who started the season well with 75 runs off 32 deliveries in the first 2 games, has struggled since the action moved to Bengaluru. Including tonight, she’s scored just 45 runs off 41 balls in her last 3 innings. With Ghosh falling cheaply tonight too, Georgia Wareham (20 off 21) and Kim Garth (14 off 15) provided some resistance but could not even crack a 100+ strike rate in the death overs.
This year, Perry comes out first down because Sophie Devine isn’t playing. Last year, she alternated between the 3rd and 4th positions, scoring 347 runs with an average of 69.40 and a strike rate of 125.72. Ghosh was the only other middle order bat to average over 25 during their championship season.
Perry earned the orange cap for her 347 runs in 2024, but it also represented 36.7% of RCB’s total runs scored from the 3-7 position. This year, that figure has become even worse, as her 235 runs represent 46.1% of RCB’s total from the their 3-7 batters.
Without Sophie Devine to prop up the top order, and Sophie Molineux, Shreyanka Patil & Asha Sobhana to boost the bowling, RCB’s batting depth is getting exposed.
Data from ESPNcricinfo.
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