WPL | We let ourselves down in crucial moments, says RCB’s Wareham

Royal Challengers Bengaluru's struggles in Women’s Premier League 2024, missing key players, facing defeats, and disappointing performances.

In a Women’s Premier League (WPL) season that has spanned more venues than the previous two years, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) would have perhaps preferred not taking the journey from Lucknow to Mumbai for the last leg of the tournament. Its fate is sealed, after all, following Saturday night’s defeat to UP Warriorz at the Ekana Cricket Stadium. There is a league encounter against Mumbai Indians remaining, but the defending champion has nothing more than a bit-part role to play in the business end at Brabourne Stadium.

While missing out on a top-three spot in the five-team event isn’t catastrophic in a format where margins between victory and defeat are minuscule, not winning a single game since beating Delhi Capitals in Vadodara on February 17 is bound to hurt the franchise. Its five-match losing streak includes four on home turf in Bengaluru, although one boiled down to a Super Over.

“The first two games we played in Bengaluru, we had a real chance of winning those. We just let ourselves down in really crucial moments. Losing four on the trot at home was not ideal for us,” spinner Georgia Wareham told reporters on Saturday.

Even before a ball was bowled this season, RCB’s title defence had setbacks to surmount. Injuries meant Shreyanka Patil, Sophie Molineux and Asha Sobhana — the top three wicket-takers in WPL 2024 with 37 scalps among them — played no part in the tournament. Star all-rounder Sophie Devine took a break for personal reasons. The absence of these figures resulted in gaps too big to plug. Wareham has picked up 11 wickets and Renuka Singh has chipped in with 10, but RCB’s dire display with the ball against Warriorz was emblematic of the troubles.

“Yeah, there were massive setbacks,” Wareham conceded. “Not having Shreyanka in the team this year has been a little bit tricky. Missing Molineux and Devine definitely changed things as well. I guess I had a little bit of a different role this year. I probably leaked a few too many runs this year.”

While Wareham didn’t pin blame on the batting unit, Ellyse Perry and Richa Ghosh didn’t enjoy enough support right through the season. Skipper Smriti Mandhana, in particular, has underwhelmed with 144 runs in seven innings.