Royal Challengers Bengaluru Dominates, Secures WPL 2026 Playoffs Berth

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). And so it proved to be once Sayali Satghare cleaned up Beth Mooney and had Sophie Devine hit straight to deep mid-wicket in her first over. 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. Ash Gardner fought a lone battle with a 43-ball 54 but the Giants had conceded so much ground in that PowerPlay that they fell well short by 61 runs, giving themselves an additional NRR blow in addition to the defeat. This was still a victory in two parts for RCB on a black-soil wicket that offered much less bounce than the ones at the DY Patil Stadium. 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. Kashvee Gautam then struck immediately, as Georgia Voll tried to cut an inswinger but only managed to drag it back onto her stumps. Enter 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. At that stage RCB were still not out of the woods and scoring at just over a run-a-ball. Naik and Richa Ghosh then led a superb counterattack, hitting a boundary each in a 13-run over off Georgia Wareham. 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. 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 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. 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.