We'll take all the learning from today and come back stronger – Smriti Mandhana

It was a bad day in the office for RCB as they succumbed to their first defeat of the WPL 2026 season. Batters failed to leave a lasting impression as the Delhi Capitals picked up another win to bolster their WPL campaign. Smriti Mandhana was the leading run-scorer for RCB in the game as she scored 38 off 34 balls on a difficult surface.

Talking at the post-match presentation, Mandhana opened up on the lessons that RCB picked up from today while also highlighting that they were willing to take the losses ahead of the playoffs. She also pinpointed the conditions of the day as a key element in defining the fate of the game while pledging a strong comeback.

Shedding light on the game, Smriti said, “For sure, I mean, in tournaments like these, you take these losses before the playoffs. So yeah, again, I think we did a lot of things right in the practice. We'll take all those positives and go ahead and I mean, we've just played really good cricket, one off day today for all of us. So we'll take all the learning from today and come back stronger.”

Talking about the surface, Smriti added, “Yeah, I feel the wicket is playing different every day here in Baroda. Last match when we played and the other matches, it kept quite low. Today, it was a little more spongy, I would say. So yeah, I think we could not adapt to it. We all thought maybe 160, 170, maybe 140 plus also was a good total. But again, I mean, credit to our bowlers. They fought really well. There's some things with our fielding and our batting, which we'll work on and take those right decisions.”

She concluded by talking about RCB’s fielding, stating, “Yeah, I mean, as I said earlier, I think as a captain, I'll take it today rather than playoffs one odd day. We really pride ourselves to field really well. So today's definitely something which we won't be really happy with as a team. And I think, yeah, this fielding performance should hit us in general for all the girls. But knowing our girls, they work really, really hard and I'm sure that they're going to come back harder, practice more harder and come back next match and go out and field the best again.”