Marizanne Kapp delivered an all-round performance, leading Delhi Capitals to a decisive 7-wicket win over the table-toppers Royal Challengers Bengaluru, keeping their Women’s Premier League (WPL ) 2026 playoff hopes alive on Saturday.Delhi Capitals’ bowling unit shared the spoils. Nandani Sharma was the standout, picking up three wickets, while Marizanne Kapp and Chinelle Henry chipped in with two wickets each. Minnu Mani’s tidy spell further ensured RCB never recovered from early setbacks.
Asked to bowl first, Marizanne Kapp set the tone with her precision and movement, finishing with excellent figures of 2 for 17. Her first major breakthrough came when she dismissed Grace Harris, who had struggled to get going. Marizanne Kapp angled a length ball in, causing Harris to mistime a flick, resulting in a leading edge brilliantly caught by Laura Wolvaardt diving at backward point.
Marizanne Kapp struck again by smartly adjusting her length to bowl Georgia Voll. She pitched slightly fuller and attacked the stumps, tempting Voll into an ill-advised slog across the line. The ball slipped under the bat and crashed into the stumps, causing a collapse as RCB slid from a stable position into trouble.
Chasing 110, Delhi Capitals Women got off to a brisk start despite losing a couple of early wickets. Shafali Verma’s quick 16 off eight balls provided early intent, while Laura Wolvaardt anchored the innings with a composed 42 off 38 deliveries, timing the ball beautifully and keeping the chase on track.Jemimah Rodrigues played the perfect supporting role, scoring a steady 24, before Marizanne Kapp finished the job with an unbeaten 19 off 15 balls. DC reached 111 for 3 in just 15.4 overs, ensuring a comfortable win.
Pitch Report and Toss
Pitch Report : Â “We have a brand new, fresh pitch. It looks slightly different than the ones we have played on previously. I am just going to go about 3-4 meters down, there’s lot more grass on here, the cracks have got that live grass, I think it is going to be slightly better for batting, maybe even higher scores. The dimensions – 52 meters to my left hand side, 57 to my right and down the ground it’s 66 meters. Firstly, the batters will love the extra bit of grass. It has been the most challenging surfaces that we have seen so far.
Look at the SR – anything in the channel line or around the fourth stump is difficult to get away, and it is no surprises that when you see the wickets at this venue, it has very much been the channel – straight line. RCB are the best bowling side by a mile in this tournament so far, it has been really about the powerplay. All their wickets have been in that channel or the stump line, that has been really effective.
I think, Delhi must-win game for them tonight, if they can get on top of RCB in that powerplay, Shafali Verma and Lizelle Lee can definitely do that, they will love the extra bit of grass and few short boundaries. Hopefully a high-scoring one. 158 is the average score and 166 is the average winning score, and you need few more than that tonight,” inform Charles Dagnall and Katey Martin.
Toss : DC Women skipper Jemimah Rodrigues won the toss and chose to bowl with two changes in the Playing XI bringing in Chinelle Henry for Lucy Hamilton and Minnu Mani in place of injured Deeya Yadav . RCB Women skipper Smriti Mandhana batting first included Arundhati Reddy in the Playing XI instead of Prema Rawat.
Marizanne Kapp, Minnu Mani share four wickets supported by 3-fer by Nandani Sharma as RCB-Women are all out for paltry 109 runs.
The set-up for a dominating bowling display by Capitals was led by Marizanne Kapp, who yet again kept a check on the scoring rate in the powerplay apart from dismissing Grace Harris and Georgia Voll cheaply. She could’ve even had Smriti Mandhana trapped legbefore on 4 in her opening over, but she had overstepped, allowing the RCB skipper another life.
There were only seven fours and no sixes in RCB’s powerplay, but it wasn’t short of pulsating action. Soon after Smriti Mandhana outside-edged her second ball past the diving wicketkeeper for four, DC took two reviews against her in the second over. The first was burnt as UltraEdge confirmed there was no bat for the catch down leg, and the second, for lbw, never unfolded properly because Marizanne Kapp had overstepped.
To Marizanne Kapp and DC’s despair, the replay on the big screen later showed three reds. Mandhana added insult to injuries with back-to-back fours in the next over, and also against Nandani Sharma in the fifth. At the other end, Grace Harris hardly looked like her destructive self while mostly going at under run a ball before miscuing one off Kapp to point for 9 off 13 balls.
Mandhana, who had struggled her way to only five runs off the first 13 balls, found some momentum to her innings late in the third over, when she caressed a couple of boundaries, and followed it up immediately by taking apart Nandni Sharma two overs later for a couple of more boundaries. Despite the movement not allowing for easy scoring, RCB had managed a steady start with 36 runs in five overs, before Grace Harris’s leading edge was caught by Laura Wolvaardt at backward point. That was the start of RCB’s collapse.
Despite the pitch looking quite slow where clearing the ropes wouldn’t be too easy, Mandhana middled one over long-on, and followed it with a drive for four through the covers. But just as RCB’s scoring rate closed in on seven runs an over, DC fought back through their Indian spinners.
Just when it seemed like Mandhana was able to control the innings on a tricky surface, which was holding on a bit, she holed out to the deep square leg fielder while attempting to go after Minnu Mani who returned to the side for this match. She snapped two wickets to ensure the pressure applied by Marizanne Kapp up front was sustained through the middle overs. By the 13th over, she had Richa Ghosh slicing to Wolvaardt at backward point, and reduced RCB to 78 for 5.
Minnu Mani first had Mandhana sweep one to deep-backward square leg while Shree Charani had Gautami Naik’s off stump pegged back from around the wicket. Captain Rodrigues then brought Kapp back for her last over, and the latter’s wobble seam accounted for Georgia Voll’s middle stump. With three wickets in as many overs, RCB had slipped from 62 for 1 to 69 for 4.
It could have been 71 for 5 had Charani clung on to a dipping return catch from Richa Ghosh on 2, but the hard-hitting batter fell in the next over when she couldn’t middle a loopy delivery from Mani and found point. RCB’s free fall continued as the DC spinners kept the pace down, the quicks bowled plenty of scrambled and wobble-seam deliveries, and their fielders held on to catches.
Radha Yadav attempted to counter attack by making good use of her feet against the spinners, but she was surprised by Chinelle Henry’s short delivery which took the edge to the ‘keeper.After another spell of three wickets in three overs, which included a sharp catch from Lizelle Lee standing up for Radha Yadav’s edge off a short ball, Nandani bagged two in the last over to lead the Purple Cap charts with figures of 3 for 26.
Henry and Nandni Sharma made good use of their slower ball variations on a surface where the ball was keeping a bit low and the batters couldn’t time as easily in their bid to play the big shots. Like Marizanne Kapp and Mani, Henry too bagged a brace, while Nandini snapped three as RCB’s innings folded up for 109.
Laura Woolvardt’s unbeaten 42* powers DC Women to a thumping 7-wicket win over RCB -Women
Marizanne Kapp then excelled with the bat in a composed chase. Despite Delhi losing both openers early and being reduced to 24 for 2, Marizanne Kapp’s steady presence ensured no late nerves. Laura Wolvaardt anchored the innings with an unbeaten 42, and Jemimah Rodrigues added a useful 24. Marizanne Kapp finished the game in style, striking an unbeaten 19 off 15 balls and sealing the win with a boundary off Shreyanka Patil.
Delhi chased down the target in just 15.4 overs, winning with 26 balls to spare. This victory lifted Delhi to second place on the table, while RCB suffered their first loss of the season. Marizanne Kapp’s impactful performance with both ball and bat was pivotal in securing the win. They wiped out the remaining runs in the next four overs. With this win, Capitals have moved to the second spot on the points table.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Smriti Mandhana the losing RCB-Women skipper said : For sure, I mean, in tournaments like these, you take these losses before the playoffs. So yeah, again, I think we did a lot of things right in the practice. We’ll take all those positives and go ahead and I mean, we’ve just played really good cricket, one off day today for all of us. So we’ll take all the learning from today and come back stronger. (on the pitch) Yeah, I feel the wicket is playing different every day here in Baroda.
Last match when we played and the other matches, it kept quite low. Today, it was a little more spongy, I would say. So yeah, I think we could not adapt to it. We all thought maybe 160, 170, maybe 140 plus also was a good total. But again, I mean, credit to our bowlers. They fought really well. There’s some things with our fielding and our batting, which we’ll work on and take those right decisions. (on their fielding) Yeah, I mean, as I said earlier, I think as a captain, I’ll take it today rather than playoffs one odd day.
We really pride ourselves to field really well. So today’s definitely something which we won’t be really happy with as a team. And I think, yeah, this fielding performance should hit us in general for all the girls. But knowing our girls, they work really, really hard and I’m sure that they’re going to come back harder, practice more harder and come back next match and go out and field the best again. (chat from you to the group after the batting innings?)
The the only thing I said batting out there today, whatever balls I faced, I was telling them that, of course, this is one of the toughest wickets we have got in the tournament, so really thought that three, four wickets in the powerplay or something like that would really give us a chance, so keep it really positive, simple. Again, I mean, 20, 30 runs more would have been ideal, but again, I think it’s a game of cricket. I’m really happy.
I’m really impressed with all the bowlers. They were really wanting to have that one fielder in, not being very safe. They were wanting to win the match, which again, all the positives which as a captain, I’ll take back. (on Sayali and Bell) Yeah, Sayali’s been brilliant for us in the powerplay, as well as Belly, I mean, both of them are making good combination in terms of one takes it out, one takes it in.
And again, we started off really, really well, but yeah, there’s some few things we can definitely get better at in terms of taking those chances. But again, as I said, with this unit of girls, I’m extremely happy with the way they’re working and I’m sure they’ll just work their way up.
Jemimah Rodrigues the winning DC-Women skipper said : A hundred percent and credit goes to the team. I think one thing this team has kept doing is kept believing and kept executing what we planned. So I think it makes my job easy as a captain. (everything went to plan tonight?) Yeah, it did. I think we were under a little pressure when Smriti was batting too, but I think a brilliant catch worked and Minnu coming in.
I think credit goes to her for her to bowl the way she did, even to right-handers. I think that was great. Kappy being Kappy as always, you know. But I think, yeah, things just were really good, I would say. But we also worked hard to get it done. So I would give credit, a lot of credit to the girls. (on the discussion in RCB-W’s innings) Yeah, we did have a discussion. Minnu was anyway going to come on, even if the timer was not on, because of the lefty.
But I think, yeah, we just kept talking about how we need to keep attacking the stumps. And don’t worry too much about picking wickets, just attack the stumps, wickets will come. So I think that’s what everyone did really well. Didn’t think too much about the outcome because we knew today’s game was very crucial. Every game is, but today was really crucial for us given the form RCB are in. But I think we just stuck to our plans, things fell into place.
 (on them being 2nd on the table) Oh really! I didn’t know that! Sometimes to win something you have to lose. So I think that’s one of those days. But I think it also speaks a lot about the character of the girls. Like I strongly believe a champion team is a team who knows how to pick themselves up after a fall. And that’s what this team has done. And I’m extremely, extremely proud of this team. We can enjoy this win today, but again, when we come back, we’re back to business.
Keep things simple, keep executing, keep sticking to our processes and the results will take care of itself. (if captaincy makes her age?) Yeah, quite a bit. But I’ve not gotten white hair so far, so it’s fine. But I think I’m really enjoying it. I think every game is so different, but I’m also giving myself space to make mistakes.
But I think even learning from the mistakes of the past, like I remember that match, the last time we played RCB, I kept Kappy for later, just thinking what if we need her in death. But today I was like, no, if she gets a wicket, then that happened. So I think that was my learning from there. So I think as long as you’re learning, you can never make mistakes, if that makes sense.
Marizanne Kapp Player of the Match for her all round show said : Yeah, look, I don’t feel it’s been going that well, to be honest. I started a bit slow this season, but it feels like I’m getting a bit of rhythm with both bat and ball, so just happy to finally contribute. (do you have a bowling captain’s role?) Not really. I just love bowling in the powerplay. That’s something I’ve been doing in this league quite a bit. Just enjoy the challenge.
I feel like I probably bowl better when there’s a bit of pressure on myself. (on her no-ball wicket) Yeah, I’m so annoyed with the no-balls. I don’t know what’s going on at the moment, but yeah, luckily it didn’t hurt us too much. Would have been pretty upset with myself if Smriti went on to score some runs there.
(are the conditions helping her this season?) I feel like this year it’s probably a little tougher than previous years. I felt like previous years it actually swung a bit more and the wickets we’ve played on were probably a bit quicker. So it’s not been that nice to bowl on. (on her team gaining momentum) Yeah, I feel like we’re getting a bit of momentum. It’s different people starting to pick up their hands and that’s always good to see. Hopefully we can just keep on getting better every game and improve on all three skills.
Led by an all-round bowling display, Delhi Capitals clinched their third win of the ongoing WPL season, and in doing so, ended Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s five-match unbeaten run in the tournament.Bottom-scrapers not too long ago, Delhi Capitals (DC) have taken down the table-toppers of WPL 2026 and handed Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) their first loss of the season. DC’s emphatic seven-wicket win was scripted by their bowlers adapting deftly on a fresh but slow and low Vadodara pitch, where RCB were bundled for 109, their lowest WPL total.
Captain Jemimah Rodrigues and her deputy Laura Wolvaardt led the chase with a solid and steady stand of 52, also helped by RCB’s fielding lapses. Apart from a couple of misfields, they put down Rodrigues twice – on 4 and 19 – and paid the price for not being able to seal their final spot just yet.DC’s second straight victory and third in six games lifted them to second spot from fourth, and on the same points (six) as Gujarat Giants, who are now third. All five teams have now played six each, but RCB are the only ones to have sealed their knockouts berth.
An easy win and DC jump to 2nd spot after tonight. This win with 4.2 overs to spare boosts their NRR as well. Shafali started aggressively as usual before she and Lee fell in successive Sayali overs to give RCB-W some hope but skipper Jemimah and Wolvaardt steadied things with a calm stand. Since the target was not high, they could afford to take their time.
The boundaries came and RCB-W’s fielding helped too, they dropped a couple of easy catches and gave away boundaries with misfields. Jemi was not there to see her side through but Marizanne Kapp and Wolvaardt ensured they won with plenty of room to spare. RCB-W had won 6 in a row before tonight but this game they couldn’t fire in any department. But they will take this off day when they have already qualified rather than on a big night.
So finally a loss for RCB-W. But they won’t mind this. They know it was just an off day for them. The race for the other two spots are heating up as DC-W gain some momentum.
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