Twitter Reactions: RCB-W ace 202-run chase on the back of team effort

The WPL 2025 kicked off on Friday, February 14 with the opener between Gujarat Giants and Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Kotambi Stadium, Vadodara. RCB won the toss and elected to bowl first. There were a number of changes in both teams from the last time they played.

Gujarat had a sedate start courtesy their overseas players Beth Mooney and Laura Wolvaardt. The latter, however, fell for a low score of six runs in the 35-run partnership. Dayalan Hemalatha could not get going and she perished for four runs off nine balls. Gujarat found themselves at 41/2 in 6.4 overs with the necessity to rebuild the innings. 

And rebuild they did. Mooney combined with skipper Ashleigh Gardner to form a 44-run partnership for the third wicket. Mooney (56 off 42), however, fell soon after reaching her fifty to a sharp catch from Smriti Mandhana at mid-wicket. Deandra Dottin came out with a mission and scored a quickfire 25 off 13 deliveries, not allowing the momentum of the innings to die down. At the other end, Gardner was going well scoring boundaries at regular intervals.

Also Read: Gujarat skipper Ashleigh Gardner hammers Prema Rawat for hat-trick of sixes in WPL 2025 opener

A bit of a cameo from Simran Shaikh (11 off 5 balls) at the fag end of the innings along with the onslaught from Gardner (79* off 37 balls) ensured Gujarat reached 201/5 in their 20 overs. For RCB-W, Renuka Singh was the best bowler with figures of 2/25 from her four overs.

In reply, RCB-W did not start off well. Mandhana (9 off 7) and Danni Wyatt-Hodge (4 off 4) failed to fire. However, the rest of the batters clicked to power the innings along. Ellyse Perry (57 off 34) and Richa Ghosh (64* off 27) scored half-centuries along with valuable knocks from Raghvi Bist (25 off 27) and Kanika Ahuja (30* off 13) which allowed the team to successfully chase the 200+ target with nine balls to spare.

For Gujarat, captain Ashleigh Gardner was the standout bowler with figures of 2/33. Eventually, RCB-W won the game with six wickets in hand.

Here's how X reacted to RCB-W's win against GJ-W -