Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Smriti Mandhana praised Nadine de Klerk for her all-round performance, which led them to a thrilling three-wicket win against Mumbai Indians in the opening match of the WPL 2026.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Smriti said: “Yeah, I think for the first match of the WPL, it was a thriller. And RCB are known for playing thrillers. Last year, we were on the receiving end of these matches, so I’m happy that we pulled it off. Brilliant from Nadine to finish the match like that. Everyone was pretty positive. We were having a laugh. Even when things were not going well, everyone stayed positive. I think everything is easier to say now because we won, but otherwise as well, the preparations have been really nice. Everyone’s looking really, really good. Nadine (de Klerk) did all the work for us in both the bowling and batting departments.”
Nadine took four crucial wickets and broke the backbone of the Mumbai Indians’ middle order. The right-arm medium pacer finished with figures of 4/26 from her four overs.
During the chase, she came in to bat when RCB were struggling after losing four wickets for just 63 runs inside the eighth over. The dynamic right-handed batter took charge and played a sensible, unbeaten innings of 63 runs off 44 balls, including seven fours and two sixes, at a strike rate of 143.18. She scored 20 runs in the final over.
MI captain Harmanpreet Kaur believes the game changed in the last over.
“I think one good ball in the last over, that’s all,” she said. “Otherwise, I think we were in the game. We did everything that was needed to win this match, except for that last over. If we could have bowled one good ball, we could have won the match.”
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