The Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women have defeated the Gujarat Giants Women by 6 wickets in the inaugural match of WPL 2025. The Royal Challengers Bengaluru are the defending champions and they proved that with a significant win over the host by six wickets at Kotambi Stadium, Vadodara. The player of the match has been awarded Richa Ghosh as she played a monster innings of 64* in 27 walls with a strike rate of 237.04, which included 7 Fours and 4 Sixes. Apart from Richa, Ellyse Perry contributed with the bat by scoring 57 runs in just 34 balls.
Early Wickets Did Not Bother The Royal Challengers
The dismissal of skipper Smriti Mandana and Danielle Wyatt by the Gujarat captain Ashley, Gardner at an early stage of the innings was a major blow to the Royal Challengers. Many of the highest records of WPL have been made such as this was the highest run chase in WPL history. As Gujarat Giants, bat first and scored 201 runs in 20 overs, the Royal Challengers scored 202 runs with a loss of 4 wickets in just 18.3 overs. Catches win Matches the old age adage continues to prove its relevance in this game. Richa and Perry justified that if you drop players like them, this is what can happen. Not everything was in the favour of the Giants, dropped catches, misfields, missed runout chances, overthrows and full tosses, things just went from bad to worse for the home team.
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Catches Win Matches
Perry was dropped on 2 in the fifth over, then a missed runout chance in the sixth over. she was dropped again on 18 and Richa Ghosh was dropped on 0 in the 12th over and also the terrible misfields helped the Royal Challengers breach this Mammoth total of 201 runs on the board. The game was always for the batters today. The Gujarat Giants’ skipper Ashley Gardner also performed with the bat as well. She scored 79 runs in 37 balls with a strike rate of 213.15 smashing 8 sixes. From the Royal Challengers, Renuka Singh picked up 2 wickets of Laura Wolvaardt and Deandra Dottin. Also, the Giants’ bowlers Dottin and Sayali Satghare put 1 wicket each in the purse for themselves. The inaugural match was nothing less than fireworks with artilleries firing from both sides. It would be interesting to see in the future how these two powerhouses would perform and who would be the ultimate winner of the Women’s Premier League, 2025.
