Lucknow, March 9 Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Smriti Mandhana on Saturday blamed her team's patchy performance in the last five games which hampered their campaign, at the same giving credit to Georgia Voll for helping UP Warriorz register a 12-run win in the WPL 2025 match at the Ekana Stadium here on Saturday.
Mandhana said her team was dealt the first blow when it lost the top three wicket-takers of their victorious season and then failed to execute their game after a good start as they ended at the bottom of the table.
On Saturday, she gave credit to UP Warriorz batters for setting up the team's massive total. Voll blasted a 56-ball 99 not out while Kiran Navgire hammered a 16-ball 46 to help UPW post 225/5, the joint-highest total in the tournament's history.
Richa Ghosh (69 off 33) and Sneh Rana (26 off 6) raised RCB's hopes but in the end, UP Warriorz kept their nerve to win by 12 runs.
"They batted positively from the first ball. Last game of the season they come out in a different mood. We pulled off quite well in the last three overs. But credit to Voll," said Mandhana.
She said her team lost its way in the last five matches. "The way we started, we thought it was going to be a good season. Last five games, we couldn't live up to the expectations we had of ourselves. Played good cricket in patches. Lost a lot of moments in games that cost us.
"Big loss to lose out top three wicket-takers from last season. Replacements were good, the way we started, thought we could take the momentum. You think something, happens differently in franchise cricket. The way Richa batted today, really happy for Rana - had a tough few years, but did well as a replacement," said Mandhana.
UP Warriorz skipper Deepti Sharma said her team was always expecting RCB to fight back.
"T20 game is always close. We were thinking that we had to be on our toes. It is a team effort, everyone clicked. These conditions I have encountered before. If we scored runs, they could also score. But I focused on my stock balls and variations. The aim was to provide breakthroughs. We have been talking that we are getting starts but the middle order was not clicking. Today everyone showed characters. Voll hit back-to-back fifties, and Grace and Kiran also contributed. When you win, everything looks positive but I am happy with the team," said Deepti.
She said she was disappointed not to qualify for the playoffs though she was happy that in the last match, they played the way they always wanted to.
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