RCB choose to field first against UPW, debut for Charlie Dean in lineup

Royal Challengers Bengaluru have won the toss and elected to bowl first against UP Warriorz.

Smriti Mandhana called correctly as Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) opted to bowl in a must-win game against UP Warriorz (UPW) to round off the Lucknow leg of WPL 2025. RCB are seeking to overturn a run of four successive losses at home, and are returning for the back-end of the league stages following a week-long break.

Mandhana announced two changes for RCB, as Charlie Dean and S Meghana were handed their first games of the competition. Dean, an injury replacement for Sophie Molineux, comes in for Danni Wyatt-Hodge, who has had a patchy run in her maiden season with the franchise. Meghna, meanwhile, comes in for left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht.

It's likely RCB will have a new opening combination in Mandhana and Meghana in their quest to quickly try and chase down whatever UPW set them with an eye on net run rate. Luckily for them, they can still control their fate.

Meanwhile, UPW are already out of contention for the playoffs, having won just two out of their seven games. They made two changes: allrounder Poonam Khemnar and left-arm seamer Anjali Sarvani got their first games. It meant Vrinda Dinesh and Gouher Sultana were out of the XI.

UPW's most recent win was in the tournament's first Super Over result against RCB, when the two sides last met on February 24 in Bengaluru. Since then, they've lost twice to Mumbai Indians, and have seen Gujarat Giants knock them out of playoff contention.

UPW: 1 Grace Harris, 2 Georgia Voll, 3 Kiran Navgire, 4 Deepti Sharma (capt), 5 Shweta Sehrawat, 6 Poonam Khemnar, 7 Uma Chetry (wk), 8 Chinelle Henry, 9 Sophie Ecclestone, 10 Kranti Goud, 11 Anjali Sarvani

RCB: 1 Smriti Mandhana (capt), 2 S Meghana, 3 Ellyse Perry, 4 Raghvi Bist, 5 Richa Ghosh (wk), 6 Kanika Ahuja, 7 Georgia Wareham, 8 Sneh Rana, 9 Charlie Dean, 10 Kim Garth, 11 Renuka Singh