Beyond the headlines: Voll's efficiency, Mandhana's bad strategy, & RCB's poor bowling
Beyond the headlines; RCB v/s UPW, Game 18 of the WPL
UPW beat RCB by 12 runs, to knock the defending champions out. In a game that saw some truly horrendous bowling, RCB conspired to concede a WPL record 225 runs, only to almost chase it down by scoring 213 before running out of batters.
But, what happened beyond the headlines?
Georgia Voll’s 99* (56) perfectly exploited the pitch conditions, Smriti Mandhana kept making poorer and poorer bowling and fielding choices, & RCB’s bowlers couldn’t maintain their lengths and speeds well enough.
Georgia Voll’s smart innings
Written by Uma Mahesh. You can follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
UP Warriorz’ campaign may not have gone as they had hoped, but they’ve unearthed a gem in Georgia Voll. After a blazing fifty against MI, she went even bigger in today’s game, smashing 99* (56).
Playing at a venue where the square boundaries measured 59m & 51m and the straight boundary stretched to 66m, Voll tactically adjusted her shot selection. She focused on using the shorter square boundaries, playing late cuts, drives, and powerful back-foot punches, collecting seventeen 4s and a 6 in the process. Unlike many aggressive batters who take on the long straight boundary, Voll opted for precision over power.
Her ability to find gaps and keep the scoreboard ticking was evident in her 78% control percentage - a sign of a batter who knew exactly where she wanted to hit. She made excellent use of the square boundaries, with approximately 84% of her total runs coming from shots placed through those regions. She was also smart about how she used the square boundaries - nearly 3/4ths of her totals runs came towards the shorter 51m side.
The longer straight boundary was used sparingly, contributing 8% of her runs, indicating her reliance on timing and placement over brute force. Voll also kept running between the wickets to maintain pressure on the bowlers, with 25.25% of her total runs coming from singles and doubles.
Voll showed versatility in her partnership building as well. In her opening stand with Grace Harris, she let the aggressive Aussie take the lead, before catching up. During their 77-run stand, Harris scored 39 off 22, while Voll put up 35 off 21 balls.
Alongside Kiran Navgire (46 off 16), Voll played a more measured hand as her partner dominated. Voll’s 21 off 10 ensured she remained proactive, maintaining tempo without over-hitting.
When batting with Chinelle Henry, Voll became the aggressor, scoring 24 off 15 as the West Indian struggled to just 19 off 15. She continued in the same vein alongside Sophie Ecclestone (13 off 10), smashing 18 off 9 balls in their 32-run stand. However, if she had been a little bit more selfish with the strike, we might have seen the WPL’s first century.
Data from ESPNcricinfo.
Mandhana messed up RCB’s bowling strategy…
Written by Tarutr Malhotra.
Georgia Voll’s 99* (56) paced a record UPW innings, but a look at her innings construction is telling. 74 of her runs (75% of her total) came from just 18 balls - seventeen 4s and one 6. She only conceded 17 dots (30% of total balls faced) - of which 7 came in her first 14 balls as she got her eye in.
No matter how brilliant Voll was tonight, those kind of skewed statistics are indicative of an RCB side that failed to choose a smart bowling & fielding strategy.
There are some obvious issues that seem inexplicable. The Lucknow stadium is asymmetric - one side is 51 metres from the pitch and the other is 59 metres. After deliberately bowling Renuka Singh in the second over to make sure the offside was longer for her inswingers to UPW’s right handed openers, RCB bowled their spinners down the wrong ends.
Until the 13th over, their off spinners (Charlie Dean, Sneh Rana) were down the end where the legside was shorter, and their leg spinner (Georgia Wareham) was bowling from the end where the offside was shorter. That meant that all three bowlers were forced to bowl perfect lines and lengths to just reduce the run rate, with predictably poor results.
Additionally, there seemed to be no plan on how to attack a weak UPW top order (No 1 to 5) that had scored just 595 runs at an average of 17 and a strike rate of 116.89 before tonight. RCB kept changing their field in response to boundaries conceded, especially during the powerplay overs where the conceded 67/0.
Renuka’s second over, and RCB’s fourth, was a perfect example. Voll hit the pacer for three 4s, between cover and point, towards square leg, and towards point. After each boundary, Smriti Mandhana changed the field setting to have someone covering the boundary that was just hit - thereby creating new spaces to be targetted, making Renuka’s life much harder.
RCB’s bowling choices were also odd. Kiran Navgire has shown a propensity to get out to slower bouncers from pacers - so, RCB bowled spinners in 3 of the 5 overs Navgire was at the crease. For context, Navgire was striking at 200 against spin and 146.48 against pace in the 2025 WPL before today’s match. She scored 17 (7) against spin tonight, including two 6s.
Additionally, despite Wareham having another over and having just picked up a wicket, RCB bowled Ellyse Perry’s pace against the pace-loving Chinelle Henry in the 15th over, conceding an unnecessary 9 (4) and two 4s to the West Indian. Wareham picked up Henry’s wicket when returning in the 17th over.
Georgia Voll and the UPW batting showed real promise today after a season of faltering, but RCB let them go wild. In a game that somehow came down to just 12 runs, RCB’s poor bowling & fielding choices cost the defending champions tonight’s game and the 2025 season.
Data from ESPNcricinfo and Jio broadcast.
…and RCB’s bowlers lost the plot in the middle overs
Written by Tarutr Malhotra.
At the 6 over mark, RCB took an early strategic timeout after they had conceded a WPL record 67/0 in the powerplay. Ellyse Perry, who had just bowled the 6th over and conceded 10 runs was seen telling the RCB bowlers to focus on two metrics - tighter lines and slower balls.
On the first ball of the 8th over, a horrid mix up got the big-hitting Grace Harris out. Out came Kiran Navgire, who has a propensity to get out to slower bouncers and tight lines bowled by pacers. It seemed like RCB’s luck was turning. The pitch’s natural advantages could give them a chance to skittle UPW’s middle order even if Georgia Voll continued batting perfectly.
But, RCB bowled 3 spinners in the 5 overs after Navgire came to the crease. Sneh Rana’s solitary over in the 11th showcased just how badly RCB’s fielding strategy messed with their bowlers’ ability. In the previous match against UPW, Rana had taken 3-27, and decimated their middle order.
Tonight, the off spinner conceded 0-13 in 1 over after being brought on the wrong end of the pitch, with the legside boundary measuring just 51m. Bowling to the right handed Georgia Voll from under the wicket, she sent multiple balls careening past the wide crease on the offside. After the first dramatically wide ball, Voll picked up on the desperate strategy to contain her, and just shifted over to hit Rana for 7 from the next 3 balls.
The pressure of the ballooning run rate meant that even Renuka Singh struggled when brought on against Navgire. In RCB’s 12th over, she didn’t bowl any bouncers at Navgire, and instead kept setting her up with balls swinging towards her pads - a Renuka staple in the powerplay but badly suited for RCB’s needs in the moment. Predictably, Navgire hit her for 22 (6), including two 4s and two 6s towards the legside.
Finally, from the 13th over, RCB started making more sense, by setting smarter fields and using bowlers from the ends that minimised their exposure to Georgia Voll’s efficient hitting.
In the first 12 overs, RCB conceded 147/1 with their odd fielding choices throwing off their bowlers. In the last 8 overs - after they started following more sensible strategies - they conceded just 78/4. But the damage had been done.
Data from ESPNcricinfo and Jio broadcast.
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