WPL: Smriti Mandhana in line to lay hands on second trophy as captain

Talk of garnering eyeballs in this Women’s Premier League (WPL), one doesn’t have to go beyond Smriti Mandhana. The scanner has been simply intense on the biggest brand in women’s cricket for more than three months — and not always for cricketing reasons — but the two-time ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year has soaked it all in with a smile, and delivered.

Come 5 February, Thursday, Mandhana will be in line to be only the second captain in the brief history of WPL to hold the winner’s trophy up twice, second only to her national captain Harmanpreet Kaur (three titles). Royal Challengers Bangalore, the 2024 champions, have been virtually unstoppable this year, winning six of their eight matches in the league stage to ensure themselves of a place in the final well in advance.

While it remains to be seen which of the four other teams take them on in the final, RCB now has the cushion of a five-day break before the title clash in Baroda. All four remaining teams — three-time champions Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Giants and UP Warriorz — are still in the running for the two play-off spots. With almost all fixtures done, the equation also relies on factors other than just respective results.

Mandhana, now 30, is currently second in the race for the Orange Cap in WPL 2026 after Nat Sciver-Brunt, having scored 290 runs in eight innings with an average of 48.33 and a strike rate of 141.46. She has hit two fifties, with a highest score of 96, and is second only to England star’s tally of 319 which includes a century. This comes in the wake of the T20I series versus Sri Lanka at home, where she became only the second woman batter to complete 10,000 international runs, not to speak of being the second highest scorer in their ODI World Cup success.

Thanking her bowlers at the post-match presentation for restricting Meg Lanning’s Warriorz to 143 for eight after a solid start, Mandhana said: ‘’It was brilliant. They (UP) started really well with the bat, almost 60–70 without loss, and from there the bowlers made a strong comeback. A special mention to Grace (Harris), who came in to bowl for the first time in the tournament and picked up two crucial wickets. Nadine (De Klerk) bowled really well again and honestly, everyone just chipped in and bowled extremely well.

‘’When the team bowls like that, it’s a very pleasing sight to watch. Over the last two games, we’ve told ourselves not to think emotionally or dig a hole for ourselves. We’ve played really good cricket in the first five matches.”

The question now is: who will RCB take on in the final? Gujarat and Mumbai Indians will face each other tonight and if the former wins, they will qualify for the play-offs. MI, who have been extremely patchy so far, still have a chance but they would be hoping for UP to beat Delhi so as to not have any problems with the net run rate (NRR).

DC, meanwhile, would be hoping for MI to either win or lose by a big margin that significantly impacts their NRR. They would then have to win their match against UPW to secure a play-off spot. UP, on the other hand, would have to win against Delhi and hope Mumbai lose to GG by a huge margin so as to equal them on points and go through on NRR.