Navi Mumbai, Jan 12 (IANS) Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the toss and elected to field against UP Warriorz in the fifth match of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2026 at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai on Monday. RCB included Gautami Naik in place of Prema Rawat, as the Warriorz have fielded the same playing XI as in the last match.

RCB captain Smriti Mandhana said, “We would like to field first today. We have seen dew coming in the latter half of the innings. The first match worked well for us. DY Patil has been a big chasing ground. Yesterday, DC could have chased that total down. Any total isn’t good enough at DY Patil Stadium. It’s always easy to know as a batting unit how much you are gonna get.

“Nadine (de Klerk) got us through in both departments, but in the tournaments like these, some players are going to stand out in some matches. It’s about contribution, and we all really want to contribute in the top order as well. Looking forward to having new match winners in every match. We have one change, Gautami comes in for Prema,” said Mandhana.

UP Warriorz captain Meg Lanning said, “We were going to have a chase as well, but the teams batting first have games this season. Regardless, we have to bat well. Hopefully, we do well with the bat, get off a good start, and post a good score. We did a lot of things right. We chased well. Kept ourselves in the game. We also bowled well in some patches. Good signs. Hopefully, we can take some confidence into this game. Having said that, we spent a good week together. Hopefully, we can improve a bit tonight and get a win. Same side tonight.”

Playing XIs:

UP Warriorz Women: Kiran Prabhu Navgire, Meg Lanning (c), Phoebe Litchfield, Shweta Sehrawat (wk), Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Sophie Ecclestone, Deandra Dottin, Kranti Gaud, Asha Shobana, Shikha Pandey

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women: Grace Harris, Smriti Mandhana (c), Dayalan Hemalatha, Richa Ghosh (wk), Radha Yadav, Nadine de Klerk, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil, Linsey Smith, Lauren Bell, Gautami Naik.

–IANS

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