RCB has won its first WPL title by defeating DC in the Women’s Premier League final.

Under the captaincy of Smriti Mandhana, the RCB team has won the trophy for the second edition of the Women’s Premier League. Delhi Capital team had set a target of 114 runs in front of Royal Challengers Banglore, which RCB chased and defeated DC by 8 wickets after losing 2 wickets.

Spinners have played a huge role in this victory for RCB in the final of WPL 2024.

Reactions from the RCB players in their interaction with the official broadcaster after the match…

Ellyse Perry: Pretty bonkers to be honest. It’s another level for us – the support for all the teams has been phenomenal and it’s been unbelievable. [On Richa Ghosh] She is unbelievable, for such a young player, she has got so many shots, we were cool and we felt we had to stay in the game and it took longer than it should have been. [On Molineux] She turned the match on its head. The rest of the spinners backed her up. Shreyanka is such a young player and she has got the world at her feet, that was a special performance. That was awesome. Sophie [Devine] and Shreyanka will be owning the stage, they are goat dancers.

Richa Ghosh: I was a bit nervous, but Perry calmed down and told me to go for my shots if the ball was there to be hit. It felt like a long time (between the Eliminator and the final), but we had prepared a lot and worked hard. By god’s grace, we won. We just wanted to bowl wicket-to-wicket, a couple of wickets and we knew we could chase the score down. The game does get close when the target is low, you can’t relax one bit.

Sobhana Asha: From the first day of the camp we have been manifesting it, we have done it. Not finding many words. Picked up mate from the Aussies. The last match I said the same, to give me the ball and I’m happy. We were very comfortable with Luke and that really helped us.

Shreyanka Patil: [On her and Asha being called spin twins] You can call us like that, we don’t mind. We did really work hard, we did have a camp before we played the season. It was amazing to get in touch with everyone and we had amazing team bonding sessions, drama and dance. They keep saying “Ee sala cup namde” and we got it. That’s it guys, it is for the fans. Day in and day out we put our hard work and we manifested, win the game and we did it. We felt like family, we did not know Luke much, last game we won against Mumbai, he had tears, we are looking forward to continuing this. [on asking Perry and Luke to dance] We are not going to leave them, they have to dance.

Ekta Bisht: When I was interviewed at the start of the tournament, I was asked what record would be set for this season, I said that RCB would end up on top. WE played well in the Eliminator, that gave us a lot of confidence going into the final, the feeling in the entire unit was very positive.

Georgia Wareham: The way Smriti was going about it, Soph [Molineux] did an unbelievable job, even today, she changed the game, we were looking at chasing 200 but she changed it. It has been unbelievable, the likes of Shreyanka the way she has improved every game and Asha as well. The confidence she has and it is something to learn off.

Sophie Devine: It’s still not great but did the job and really stoked for the whole group. We had the parts last year and it was about putting them together. Outstanding from the management. Smriti was outstanding, she was calm and learnt on the go. And when you have Ellyse Perry in your team, it’s just brilliant. To see how many people are there and to support them for RCB is special. We have the best fans in the world as we have seen with the men’s team. Stoked to bring home the trophy in front of all these fans.

Renuka Singh Thakur: Goosebumps moment, 1st trophy for us and I’m sure the fans are elated. The entire RCB fans supported us throughout, the team bonding was excellent as well. We just wanted to play simple cricket and didn’t put too much pressure on ourselves. We didn’t have any target in mind, they scored a lot of runs in the batting PP, but we told ourselves we just needed one wicket to get back into the contest.

Image Source: Fancode and RCB Twitter