RCB-W vs MI-W Playing 11: Smriti Mandhana-led Royal Challengers Bengaluru will square off against Harmanpreet Kaur-led Mumbai Indians in the 16th match of the WPL 2026 on January 26 at BCA Stadium, Vadodara.
With RCB having secured a spot in the qualifiers after securing 5 wins out of six games, the Mumbai Indians will be aiming for a win to keep their qualification chances alive.
Bengaluru retains their top spot, Mumbai Indians has been place in the second bottom of the WPL 2026 points table.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the toss and opted to bowl. Speaking at the toss, Smriti Mandhana said, “We’d like to field first today. Dew has been a big factor at Baroda and the wicket has played differently in almost every match. As a batting unit, it’s good to know what to expect.”
“A lot of learnings, especially around batting, understanding and assessing situations quickly as a top order and knowing what our par score is. That’s going to be extremely important going forward in the tournament,” added Mandhana.
“Of course, we also need to field and bowl in the right areas, which we did extremely well in the first five matches. There was a bump in the road last game, but we’d like to rectify those mistakes,” added RCB captain.
“We’ve had a little experience over the last 10 days, but you can’t come prepared assuming the wicket will play a certain way because it’s been different every game,” she added.
Playing XIs of @RCBTweets and @mipaltan 🙌
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— Women’s Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) January 26, 2026
“We’ll have to see how the first couple of overs go, assess it, get together and communicate well with each other. Same eleven for us today,” Smriti Mandhana concluded.
Meanwhile, Harmanpreet Kaur said, “Looking at the conditions and how previous matches have gone, we wanted to bowl first. But whatever comes our way, it’s a very important match for us.”
“Playing with a positive approach is the key today, that’s more important. We spent some really good quality time together and had very productive meetings,” added Kaur.
“Hopefully, whatever we discussed and trained on over the last few days, we’ll execute it out there. Today we have one change – Amelia Kerr is back in the side, and Carey misses out due to injury. It’s an important game, we’re going with our best eleven and hopefully we’ll play positive cricket,” added Harmanpreet Kaur.
RCB-W vs MI-W Playing 11
Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women: Grace Harris, Smriti Mandhana(c), Georgia Voll, Gautami Naik, Richa Ghosh(w), Radha Yadav, Nadine de Klerk, Arundhati Reddy, Sayali Satghare, Shreyanka Patil, Lauren Bell
Mumbai Indians Women: Sajeevan Sajana, Hayley Matthews, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Amelia Kerr, Rahila Firdous(w), Amanjot Kaur, Sanskriti Gupta, Vaishnavi Sharma, Shabnim Ismail, Poonam Khemnar
