Special to watch – Smriti Mandhana on the Radha Yadav-Richa Ghosh partnership for RCB

The Royal Challengers Bengaluru pocketed their third win of the season as they brushed aside a stern challenge from the Gujarat Giants. Despite a shaky start with the bat, Radha Yadav, Richa Ghosh and Nadine de Klerk powered them to 182. The bowlers came up with a strong show as the Giants could only rack up 150 runs before being bundled out.

Talking at the post-match presentation, RCB captain Smriti Mandhana opened up on the overall game and how the entire team delivered when it mattered the most. She also focused on how good the RCB bowling was while underlining the need to work on the fielding part despite a handful of fabulous catches towards the end.

Shedding light on the game, Smriti Mandhana said, “Yeah, it was good. I mean, all the girls and the partnership between Radha and Richa was something really special to watch. And then, yeah, Shrey coming in and bowling those overs, crucial overs and getting those crucial wickets. I mean, overall, the whole team performed really well today.”

Explaining the decision to promote Radha Yadav, Smriti said, “Well, she's always played that role for state cricket for Baroda. And she's always done well, even when India A toured Australia A. We knew that she always bats in that order. And we always look at her as a finisher. But I feel that order was something....Then when we lost out on Pooja for the first four, five matches where we thought of her pre-auction, then I mean the easiest swap was Radha because she's done that for the state team. And I mean, as WPL, I mean, it's an Indian league and if someone's batted at that order in the state cricket, you should back them to do that. And yeah, I mean, when you do that, they come good.”

Revealing how confident she was about defending the total, Mandhana said, “Well, with DY Patil and the dew you don't know what's a good total. But with our bowling, the way we've bowled in the first two matches and I mean the variety which we have, we have two quality left-arm spinners, good offspinner again with pace bowling options as well. We have Bell, Aru and Nadine. So I mean, when you have that sort of a variety and everyone can deliver under pressure. So, so for sure, I mean, we had that confidence, but again, you can't be too overconfident at DY Patil.”

Pointing the areas to work on, Smriti concluded, “We've definitely dropped two catches today and both were sitters. So that's something which we really back our pride in ourselves to be a really good fielding side with the kind of fielders everyone we have. So that's not something which is acceptable. And yeah, again, delivery, delivering. I don't think in terms of other ways there's something which we can definitely work on is the middle-order where we're losing wickets in again back to back wickets. That's something which we'll have an eye on and we'll keep working on. Again, there's a lot of areas we can still work on.”