RCB secure playoff berth with dominant win over GG

With a swagger that suggests this is just the beginning, Royal Challengers Bengaluru have already secured what teams spend the entire league stage chasing, a playoff spot, five games into their season. We are only at the beginning of the WPL 2026 Vadodara leg, and table-toppers RCB continued with the same ruthless authority that saw them sweep through Navi Mumbai. They produced yet another all-around masterclass against the Gujarat Giants to go five from five this year, with six factors in their win to close out the final, a run that has never been seen before in the short history of this league. In the previous match, Gujarat Giants had pushed RCB close, at least in one innings, and they had every reason to believe they could do so again in a chase of 178, even on a ground whose characteristics this season will only begin to unravel. After all, in WPL 2026, the Giants had a PowerPlay run rate of 10.08, which was significantly higher than even the next-best team, RCB (9.04). As it turned out, they were up against a bowling attack that has consistently topped the league in every PowerPlay metric, including Dot% (53.8), Boundary% (17.22), Wickets (11), Average (18.09), SR (16.3), and ER (6.63). After Sayali Satghare removed Beth Mooney from the game and hit Sophie Devine straight to deep mid-wicket in her first over, this proved to be the case. The writing was very much on the wall. When Lauren Bell cleaned up Kanika Ahuja, the Giants were 5 for 3 and only managed to stutter to 29 for 3 after six overs. The Giants conceded so much ground in that PowerPlay that they fell well short by 61 runs, inflicting an additional NRR blow on themselves in addition to the defeat, and Ash Gardner fought a lone battle with a 43-ball 54. On a black-soil wicket that offered significantly less bounce than the ones at the DY Patil Stadium, this was still a victory for RCB in two parts. As in that reverse fixture, RCB had to recover from a wobbly start to post a competitive total thanks to an excellent 73 from Gautami Naik, the highest score by an uncapped Indian in this WPL season so far. 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. Georgia Voll attempted to cut an inswinger but was only able to drag it back onto her stumps when Kashvee Gautam struck immediately. Naik is here. The right-hander pitched a mature innings to revive RCB's fortunes, playing with poise beyond her experience at this level. Smriti Mandhana built steadily to 18 off 16 at the conclusion of the PowerPlay, leaving RCB with just 37 players on the board. After a brief resurrection stand, the RCB captain, fresh off a 96 in the previous game, was caught LBW by her opponent with a review. This marked Gardner's tenth dismissal of Mandhana across all competitions. At that point, RCB was still in trouble, scoring just over a run-a-ball. Following that, a superb counterattack was led by Naik and Richa Ghosh, who each hit a boundary in a 13-run over against Georgia Wareham. Naik scored her half-century with her 42nd ball, and Kashvee gave up a chance to run in from long-off almost immediately gave her a break. 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. 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 went down for a 20-ball 27 and Naik went down for a 55-ball 73 not long after. However, there was still some fireworks from RCB as Radha Yadav hit Sophie Devine for a six and hit two boundaries against Kashvee in the final over. Shreyanka Patil, who left to play the last two balls of the innings, scored two runs herself, one by swinging behind square on the leg side and the other by sweeping in the opposite direction. When even 160 seemed like a stretch at one point, RCB reached close to 180 thanks to the Giants' 21 extras, 15 of which were wides. They scored 64 runs in those final five overs, which as it turned out was more than the eventual margin of their comprehensive victory.