Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter Gautami Naik played a brilliant knock against Gujarat Giants in the 2026 Women’s Premier League (WPL) match in Vadodara on Monday. The match saw a disappointing performance from RCB’s top-order batters. Grace Harris and Georgia Voll, the two overseas players, could only manage a run each. However, Gautami Naik‘s brilliant knock of 73 runs off 55 balls helped RCB post a total of 178/6. This was Gautami Naik’s maiden fifty in the league.
Gautami Naik hammered seven fours and a six en route to her 73 runs off 55 balls. Gautami Naik was dismissed for nine in her only other innings this season. Notably, the ongoing tournament marked Naik’s WPL debut. The 27-year-old uncapped batter has indeed made an early mark.
RCB marched into the WPL 2026 playoffs with their fifth straight win in this year’s competition on Monday, January 19. Gautami Naik’s 73 and a disciplined bowling performance helped Bengaluru complete the double over the Giants, who were never really in the chase to begin with.
With the win, RCB made it six win on the trot in the WPL, the longest streak in the history of the competition. For Gujarat, it was their third loss on the trot as the batters failed early on. Apart from Ashleigh Gardner, who scored 54 runs, none of the other GG batters could find momentum in the first match in Vadodara, which was supposedly their home ground.
Pitch Report and Toss
Pitch Report : It’s pitch No. 4 today so the side boundaries are 52m and 61m, while the straight hit is 66m. Both these teams have played on this surface before and it was a very high scoring match. The first thing you notice about the pitch is that it has visible cracks because the wicket is quite dry underneath. It is rolled really well and hard like a rock. It is a good wicket to bat as well and the pacers will get some bounce. If you talk about the spinners, there’s nothing much to offer. The finger spinners may not get much spin.
Overall, a good pitch. Can expect a high-scoring game. Under lights the ball could skid on and come nicely onto the bat. There is a possibility of dew and last season we saw captains opting to bowl because of it. It’s two high-scoring sides up against each other. The average first innings score is 156 but we are not sure about that because of the two teams that are going to play today. reckons Stacy-Ann King and Mithali Raj in their pitch report.
Toss : GG Women skipper Ashleigh Gardner won the toss and chose to bowl with 2 changes in the Playing XI bringing in fit again Anushka Sharma and debutant Happy Kumari in the Playing XI in place of Ayshi Soni and Rajeshwari Gayakwad. RCB Women skipper Smriti Mandhana batting first made no changes in the Playing XI.
Gautami Naik’s 73 runs powers RCB to 178 for 6 in 20 overs
Ashleigh Gardner’s decision to field was vindicated after her bowlers quickly reduced the table-toppers to 9/2 inside two overs. Renuka Singh’s inswinger accounted for Grace Harris, who could only manage a single before being caught at mid-on. Kashvee Gautam then struck immediately, as Georgia Voll tried to cut an inswinger but only managed to drag it back onto her stumps.
It wasn’t an easy start for RCB. Renuka Singh struck with the final ball of the opening over, dismissing Grace Harris, who chipped a simple catch to mid-on. Georgia Voll, who made her RCB debut in the previous game and made a fifty, followed soon after, attempting a cut and losing her stumps.
Giants captain Ash Gardner brought herself on, eyeing a favourable match-up against Smriti Mandhana, but Mandhana countered her with a couple of boundaries. Gautami Naik at the other end took some time to get going. Her first boundary came off a drive, before a pick-up shot over deep square leg signalled her intent. But even after that, she was moving at just under run a ball. With the duo slowly rebuilding, they brought up their fifty-run stand at the end of the eighth over.
But Gardner returned in the ninth and showed why she dominated the match-up against Mandhana, removing her for the fourth time in the WPL in eight innings.
Enter Gautami Naik. The right-hander played with composure beyond her experience at this level, constructing a mature innings to resurrect RCB’s fortunes. By the end of the PowerPlay, RCB had only 37 on the board with even Smriti Mandhana building steadily on 18 off 16. The RCB captain, fresh off a 96 in the last game, couldn’t kick on after her brief resurrection stand and was trapped LBW by her opposite number with a review. It marked the 10th time in all competitions that Gardner had dismissed Mandhana.
Mandhana and Gautami Naik added 60 runs off 45 balls and it was the latter who was the aggressor in the stand. Mandhana was playing the anchor role as Gautami flexed her muscles with a few big shots. She started with a boundary and then a six off Renuka as the innings was up and running.
At that stage RCB were still not out of the woods and scoring at just over a run-a-ball. Gautami Naik and Richa Ghosh then led a superb counterattack, hitting a boundary each in a 13-run over off Georgia Wareham.
Gautami Naik reached her half-century off her 42nd ball and almost immediately survived a reprieve when Kashvee put down a chance running in from long-off. A standout feature of her innings though was her ability to use her long levers to swing through the line, even on occasions she didn’t get to the pitch of the ball, but then just as easily going back to cut or punch through the off-side.
With Gautami Naik getting on with the rebuild, she also found the gaps occasionally. She got to her fifty off 42 balls as she became the first uncapped Indian player in the WPL to hit a half-century, also surviving a dropped catch shortly after. Ghosh, meanwhile, upped the tempo, hitting three sixes in her 20-ball stay before she was caught at long-on off a full toss, which she reviewed for no-ball to no avail.
Having put the innings back in order, the pair went up the gears in the final five overs starting with Ghosh’s takedown of Tanuja Kanwer for a pair of sixes in a 17-run over. Ghosh fell for a 20-ball 27 and Gautami Naik fell not long after for a 55-ball 73. But there was still some pyrotechnics to come from RCB as Radha Yadav slammed Sophie Devine for a six and then began the final over with a brace of boundaries against Kashvee.
Despite Mandhana falling with the score at 69 for three, Gautami Naik showed full confidence in her hitting and raced to her fifty in 42 balls. Gautami Naik made GG for dropping her soon after her landmark by putting up a 69-run stand with Richa Ghosh, who scored 27 runs.
Shreyanka Patil, who walked out to play the final two balls of the innings, found two boundaries herself, one with a swing behind square on the leg-side and another with a reverse sweep. With the Giants bowling as many as 21 extras (including 15 runs in wides), RCB reached a score close to 180 when even 160 seemed a stretch at one point.
They scored 64 runs in those final five overs, which as it turned out was more than the eventual margin of their comprehensive victory. By the time Gautami Naik departed for 73 off 55 balls, RCB were 142 for five and set for a big finish. They got it with Radha’s 17 off 8 and Shreyanka’s 8 off 2 balls
After a solid start with the ball, Giants let the momentum slip away, conceding 94 runs in the middle overs. They also went on to concede 40 runs off the last four, with Radha Yadav and Shreyanka Patil taking Gautam for four fours in the last over. Giants were also sloppy on the field and conceded 21 runs as extras on the day, the joint second-most by a team in the WPL.
Ashleigh Gardner’s 54 runs in vain as Sayali Satghare’s 3-fer powers RCB Women to the Playoffs with their 5th straight win by 61 runs
If Lauren Bell doesn’t get you, Sayali Satghare will. Giants may have escaped the first over from the clinical Bell, but lost both openers cheaply in the second over to Satghare – Beth Mooney bowled for 3 and Sophie Devine holing out for a duck.
It was then Bell’s turn as she got one to swing back in to knock Kanika Ahuja’s stumps over, leaving Giants at 5 for 3 at that point. Anushka Sharma, who was returning from an injury, then timed a few boundaries to perfection but could not build on the start, slicing a Nadine de Klerk slower ball to Radha. Giants went on to lose their next two batters cheaply, reeling at 56 for 6.
Chasing 63 off the final six overs, the equation was steep, but Gardner found her rhythm after a stuttering start. She took Radha for three boundaries and launched a big six off Bell to raise a fighting half-century. Sayali Satghare, however, returned to end Gardner’s resistance and finish with three wickets, as Giants eventually slipped to a big defeat.
Coming in as a replacement for the fan favourite Ellyse Perry, Sayali Satghare came into her own during the win against Delhi Capitals last time around, securing a double-strike in the very first over she bowled.That trend continued in the match on Monday as he first cleaned up Beth Mooney and then a few balls later, dismissed the dangerous Sophie Devine to leave Gujarat reeling at four for two in two overs while chasing 179.
The next over saw the ever-consistent Lauren Bell add another wicket to her season’s tally. Anushka Sharma, who missed the last few games, looked to be comfortable in the middle and hit a couple of elegant boundaries as the task was to steady the ship alongside Gardner.But the powerplay score of 29 for the loss of three wickets wasn’t just enough in the context of the run chase, meaning that acceleration was needed. Anushka perished in her efforts to push the run-rate as Nadine de Klerk also joined the party.
What started as a season with a lot of hope and two straight wins has quickly unfolded for the Giants. It was surprising to see that with the required run-rate being high they decided to send in Kashvee Gautam instead of Bharti Fulmali.
The 31-year-old has been hitting with a strike-rate of more than 178 in her last five matches and Kashvee had managed just 36 runs in three innings she has come out to bat with a strike-rate of 112.5. And the all-rounder failed to make an impact and was dismissed for four off eight balls.
Georgia Wareham’s stay was also brief as the writing was already on the wall for the Giants. Gardner got to her fifty with a couple of big hits, but that was the only bit of excitement that the Gujarat fans would have during their side’s batting performance.While Kanwer attempted to play some innovative shots, it wasn’t enough as RCB sealed the win and moved into the play-offs.
This is the second time that a team has started its WPL campaign with five wins in a row; after MI-W did that in the inaugural edition in 2023. RCB-W are through to the playoffs.With the ball, Satghare picked up figures of three for 21 and has given the management a good headache by the time Arundhati Reddy comes in.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Ashleigh Gardner the losing GG-Women skipper said : Yeah, it’s pretty frustrating. I’m not going to lie (on winning the toss and losing). I just think we’re just not winning those small moments, whether it’s in the field where you’re taking chances and then people go on to make decent scores.
I think tonight when they missed the stumps, we didn’t capitalise on them. But as soon as we left the stumps, they capitalised on them. So, it’s just those small moments that we’re not winning at the moment. You know, we’re two or three, so it’s pretty obvious that we need to win these last three games. But, yeah, overall, it’s pretty frustrating. (On how the pitch played) Yeah, you’ve obviously got to fight when you go back to play square against the ball…
You know, I said at the toss that we had to keep the stumps in play. I think if you look at our dismissals when we got bowled or caught we were going across the line. So, I think the way that we need to go forward is to try and play really straight. I felt like that was the best option. I think a lot of the positive scoring options were down the ground. So, making sure that, you know, you give yourself the best chance in the ball does stay a little bit low, which it did at times.
But yeah, overall, there’s plenty of learnings, which is always a positive. But, you know, standing here after a loss is never great. We just knew that we had to utilise the wicket. It sounds pretty cliche. The bounce wasn’t necessarily true. The ball wasn’t always staying consistently off the same length.
I’ve always been a decent match up to Smriti. So making sure that I keep the stumps in play. I guess the mode of dismissals that got her out on going across the line, so making sure that I stay nice and straight, knowing that she is really strong square of the wicket.
No (wasn’t expecting that kind of a knock from Gautami). We obviously know the talent that’s there in Indian domestic cricket. The last time we played RCB, Radha made runs. But it’s us talking about those players and not being as clinical as, I guess, their bigger names, which comes back to us as bowlers and me as captain, making sure that I can stay nice and accountable to all the players.
I think it’s so important to make sure that we speak evenly across the top seven, eight players because it just shows that a young player coming in can have a real impact. (On her innings) Yeah, I was pretty angry out there to be honest (smiles). I think it was obvious. Yeah, I was really frustrated.
I felt like I was either hitting good shots to the fielders or just missing the ball. And like I mentioned before, I felt like they didn’t necessarily pay for when they missed the stumps, where I think that bowling innings, you know, every time that we bowled wide, we kind of went into the boundary. So I guess, upon reflection, yeah, I was probably just trying a little bit too hard to shock, but yeah, I think for me going forward, it’s making sure that you just hit nice cricket shots.
Smriti Mandhana the winning RCB Women skipper said : Â Very happy. The way we started, to get 180 plus from there was an excellent effort. Very very happy for Gautami. Coming from domestic cricket, doing well there but performing at the biggest stage.
Coming in and batting at like 10 for 2 and then batting the way she did. I am really happy and proud about her and then the way she finished as well with Richa, Radha and Nadine. And then again the execution of the bowling plans was spot on. (What’s stood out about Gautami) I think the attitude she’s had from the first game. I remember her coming into the field and she didn’t get to bat in the first game.
But the attitude was spot on. That’s what we discussed as well. That’s something you can get out, you can do anything with this attitude. If you do well, I mean that’s the most important thing. And today again, the application was spot on. Like the wicket wasn’t easy to bat but then she understood very quickly and adapted very well. I mean for her to do it, without having the experience, that’s a very commendable job.
(On how they assessed the pitch) When I was betting out there and when we lost Grace and Voll and whatever balls I played when we had a strategic break, I did mention that I think 160 plus is a good total. Anything above that is a bonus but if we aim at 160 plus, I think we’ll be able to defend it with the wickets which we have.
Again, red soil to black soil is different. Last year these wickets were extremely different. Today it was a lot drier. So that’s what we discussed and it was… Again, we can discuss it, but it’s on the girls to adapt quickly, so I am really happy.
(On different players performing in different games) It’s amazing to see that kind of a thing when you have, it’s like a happy support staff when you have five different match winners.
And not only people who’ve won the award, I mean, everyone has had a moment in this WPL where they’ve done, maybe taken an important wicket or broken an important partnership, took an important catch, or had a role to play in the batting innings as well. So that’s something extremely happy.
I feel everyone, whoever has played in eleven has they’ll go back home saying that, oh, we did this, and we won the match. Looking forward to the break. I mean, to play three matches in four days with a travel day. Extremely proud of the girls and their effort. Again, it’s not an easy thing to come and play these high intensity matches and then have a travel day in between.
But the message is just going to be clear. Just maybe take a two days break and come back. Genuinely, the group we have, sometimes you have to tell them to stop working hard rather than the other way because they are extremely hard working.
(RCB winning six games on the trot) One of it’s kind for RCB (laughs). Again, it’s not been really big on what’s going to happen after 10 or 15 days. It’s about doing the smaller things right, doing each day right, taking each match at a time and also having practice sessions. So everyone’s put in a lot of hard work. Credit to our support staff as well.
They’ve kept everyone really positive and happy, which is again a good atmosphere to be. So I don’t think I need to really put my hand up and say a lot of things. Everyone knows their work. And again, I mean, what happens after 10 to 15 days is something which we’re not looking forward to. We are just looking forward to going out tomorrow, day after, and then coming back and practicing extremely hard for the next match.
Gautami Naik Player of the Match for her match winning 73 runs said : I’m feeling very good. First of all, I would like to thank God for giving me this opportunity, and I’m happy that I was able to deliver for the team. I also want to thank the management for the trust they showed in me, and today I feel I was able to prove that trust right. (On moving to different states to play cricket) I would just like to say that I was enjoying my cricket.
I just needed a chance to play. Be in anywhere, I just wanted to go back and play cricket again. It’s been a very long journey. You know how hard I’ve worked for this moment. I’ve sacrificed a lot to reach here. I want to thank my coaches, my mother, and my family who stood by me throughout this journey. Because of them, I feel I’ve been able to reach this stage. I want to dedicate this award to my coaches and my family. Because of them, I am here today. Everyone has put in a lot of effort for me, so I dedicate this award to them.
Five matches into their season and Royal Challengers Bengaluru have already secured what teams spend the entire league stage chasing, a place in the playoffs, and they’ve done so with a swagger that suggests this is only the beginning. We are only at the start of the Vadodara leg of WPL 2026 and table-toppers RCB continued with the same ruthless authority that saw them sweep through Navi Mumbai, producing yet another all-round masterclass against the Gujarat Giants to go five from five this year, six factoring in their win to close the last – a run unprecedented in this league’s short history.
Gujarat Giants had pushed RCB close, at least in one innings in the reverse fixture, and they will have had every reason to believe they could run them close again in a chase of 178 even on a ground whose characteristics this season will only begin to be unravelled.
After all, the Giants came with a PowerPlay run-rate of 10.08 in WPL 2026, well clear of even the next best – RCB (9.04). As it turned out, they were up against a bowling attack that has been the league’s gold standard in every conceivable PowerPlay metric – Wickets (11), Average (18.09), SR (16.3), ER (6.63), Dot% (53.8), Boundary% (17.22).
Gautami Naik’s 73 and a combined effort from their bowlers powered Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to a comprehensive win against Gujarat Giants, sealing their playoffs spot in WPL 2026. RCB maintained their perfect record in the tournament, winning five games in a row to become only the second team after the Mumbai Indians in 2023 to achieve this feat; they also posted their biggest win by runs (61) in the tournament.
Playing the first match of the season at the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara, RCB recovered from 9 for 2 to post 178 for 6 thanks to Gautami Naik’s half-century and handy contributions from Richa Ghosh and Radha Yadav. In return, Giants could only make 117 for 8, losing their second match in a row to RCB.
So RCB have done the double on GG this season. The head-to-head record now tilts 5-3 in favour of RCB. The Gujarat Giants fought well in Navi Mumbai, but RCB bossed the show here in Vadodara. The hosts were actually off to a great start with both opening bowlers striking in their respective first overs but RCB had a surprise package in Gautami Naik. With Smriti she built a solid base for the third wicket and once she lost her captain, she took the responsibility of batting deep.
She recorded her first WPL fifty and with contributions from others, RCB posted 178. There were 6 WPL games that were played here last year and all games were won by the chasing side. The Giants walked out with a lot of belief but Sayali Satghare rocked them early with a double strike in her very first over.
Lauren Bell joined the party to make it 5/3. Anushka and Gardner seemed like they were in a recovery act but Nadine de Klerk gave breakthrough through the middle overs like she’s always done this comp. None apart from Gardner could make notable contributions and eventually RCB remained undefeated five games into the season.
With six wins on the trot, RCB set the record for the longest winning streak in WPL. They have entered the playoffs and one more win will confirm their entry into the final. The team that finishes first gets a direct entry to the final. The Giants have some catching up to do. For Gujarat, they will need to head to the drawing board and regroup as they face an upbeat UP Warriorz side next in the league on January 22.For now, RCB can rest their feet up till Saturday, January 24, when they face Delhi Capitals.
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