Kapp, Mani share four wickets as DC hand RCB first loss of the season

Bottom-scrapers not too long ago, Delhi Capitals (DC) have taken down the table-toppers of WPL 2026 and handed Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) their first loss of the season. DC's emphatic seven-wicket win was scripted by their bowlers adapting deftly on a fresh but slow and low Vadodara pitch, where RCB were bundled for 109, their lowest WPL total.

Captain Jemimah Rodrigues and her deputy Laura Wolvaardt led the chase with a solid and steady stand of 52, also helped by RCB's fielding lapses. Apart from a couple of misfields, they put down Rodrigues twice - on 4 and 19 - and paid the price for not being able to seal their final spot just yet.

DC's second straight victory and third in six games lifted them to second spot from fourth, and on the same points (six) as Gujarat Giants, who are now third. All five teams have now played six each, but RCB are the only ones to have sealed their knockouts berth.

There were only seven fours and no sixes in RCB's powerplay, but it wasn't short of pulsating action. Soon after Smriti Mandhana outside-edged her second ball past the diving wicketkeeper for four, DC took two reviews against her in the second over. The first was burnt as UltraEdge confirmed there was no bat for the catch down leg, and the second, for lbw, never unfolded properly because Marizanne Kapp had overstepped.

To Kapp and DC's despair, the replay on the big screen later showed three reds. Mandhana added insult to injuries with back-to-back fours in the next over, and also against Nandani Sharma in the fifth. At the other end, Grace Harris hardly looked like her destructive self while mostly going at under run a ball before miscuing one off Kapp to point for 9 off 13 balls.

Despite the pitch looking quite slow where clearing the ropes wouldn't be too easy, Mandhana middled one over long-on, and followed it with a drive for four through the covers. But just as RCB's scoring rate closed in on seven runs an over, DC fought back through their Indian spinners.

Minnu Mani first had Mandhana sweep one to deep-backward square leg while Shree Charani had Gautami Naik's off stump pegged back from around the wicket. Captain Rodrigues then brought Kapp back for her last over, and the latter's wobble seam accounted for Georgia Voll's middle stump. With three wickets in as many overs, RCB had slipped from 62 for 1 to 69 for 4.

It could have been 71 for 5 had Charani clung on to a dipping return catch from Richa Ghosh on 2, but the hard-hitting batter fell in the next over when she couldn't middle a loopy delivery from Mani and found point. RCB's free fall continued as the DC spinners kept the pace down, the quicks bowled plenty of scrambled and wobble-seam deliveries, and their fielders held on to catches.

After another spell of three wickets in three overs, which included a sharp catch from Lizelle Lee standing up for Radha Yadav's edge off a short ball, Nandani bagged two in the last over to lead the Purple Cap charts with figures of 3 for 26.

Shafali Verma came out all guns blazing, perhaps wanting to wipe out a chunk of the target before the field spread out. She scythed the first ball of the chase for four, steered the third past point for the same result, and carved the sixth also square of the wicket for 12 off the first over. Shafali belted another boundary, before stunning work from Ghosh completed a quick stumping in the second over. DC's chase wobbled a bit more when Sayali Satghare also removed Lee courtesy of a sharp catch from Voll at the leg-side boundary.

What was 24 for 2 could have been 33 for 33, but Satghare put down her Mumbai team-mate Rodrigues at short third. The DC captain then collected two streaky boundaries, with edges flying through the slips. Wolvaardt and Rodrigues eased DC's nerves, and marched on towards the target. Wolvaardt put away poor balls in the gap mostly along the ground, before a slog-sweep for six late in the chase. Rodrigues also opened up later, especially after Naik also put down a straightforward chance at midwicket.

Rodrigues ran out of luck when she handed a catch to Mandhana at cover before Kapp bashed a couple of big hits, which included the winning runs. Lauren Bell went wicketless for the first time this WPL, and the game saw only three sixes on what Mandhana later called "one of the toughest pitches" of this WPL.