Five out of five now for RCB as this juggernaut shows absolutely no signs of stopping. They also managed to throw up yet another new hero in Gautami Naik, and can seem to lose no game. Read our analyses here.
🧠 Gardner got Smriti’s wicket, but the real battle was won in her mind
They say history repeats itself. Cricket is no exception, no matter who you are.
The famed battle between Ashleigh Gardner and Smriti Mandhana has gone on for years across formats, with Mandhana basically being Gardner’s bunny.
Across Twenty20 cricket, Gardner had dismissed Mandhana five times in around nine overs, with Smriti averaging a mere 9.6 while striking at 96.
But over the years, the narrative has shifted. Fans will remember Smriti’s dominance of Gardner in the ODI series last year. She not only played Gardner well but took her apart, striking at 135 and going unbeaten across 12 overs of the matchup.
Earlier in the tournament, Gardner got just two deliveries at Smriti, which she safely negotiated before getting off strike. She was dismissed before facing Gardner again anyway.
This time, it was a similar sequence—initially. Gardner came on to bowl to Smriti, but unlike their previous encounter, she was wayward. Smriti capitalised, smashing two boundaries. The over went for 14, prompting Gardner to take herself out of the attack.
However, when Smriti and Gautami Naik started piling on the pressure, Gujarat Giants needed to break the partnership. Captain Gardner gave herself another crack.
A very simple but clever ploy was applied to entice Smriti to hit into a certain area. With the field spread, Smriti likes to target the region from cover all the way through to straight behind the bowler. While she does play other scoring strokes like cuts or sweeps, those are more situational—countering certain deliveries or seeking different boundary options.
Gardner, well aware of this, gave Smriti the easy way out. She opened up her inner ring on the leg side, offering Smriti the chance to get off strike.
With no fielder deep on the off side apart from long-off, the ideal play would be for Gardner to fire it straight into Smriti’s pads—something she’s done before with success, given the slight drift she gets inward to the left-hander.
And the psychology of it all is fascinating. At the end of the day, Smriti could have very easily made room and opened up the offside—her strong area. Instead, she chose to get inside the line of the ball to try and tuck it away somewhere behind square leg. She missed the delivery completely and was given out LBW after Gardner took the DRS.
Smriti may have shown signs of improvement against the Gardner matchup, and she surely has. But this sequence was a stark reminder of how important the mental side of the game is. You can be the greatest batter of your generation, but you could still find it tough to control your subconscious thoughts and muscle memory while batting.
Gardner didn’t just get Smriti’s wicket. She conquered Smriti’s mind.
📈 RCB are getting better with each passing game!
Honestly, this is just a bit of an appreciation write-up for RCB. They’re shaping up exactly how a good team would through a big tournament. I mean it in the sense of them starting decently enough, but not finding their right combinations, having players misfire, but all of it slowly coming around beautifully as the tournament progresses.
The one constant for them has been the fact that a new player has stepped up every game. If it was Lauren Bell & Nadine de Klerk initially, it was Radha Yadav later with the bat, Sayali Satghare and Shreyanka Patil with the ball & Gautami Naik today, playing the perfect anchor role for the team to bat around.
RCB have been wayward in selections and plans, and Smriti is definitely not the most tactically sound leader out there, but the way new troops have marshalled around her and the franchise is definitely worth noting.
At the rate at which they’re going, they’d ideally be playing their perfect game very, very soon, and what their peak performance could look like is a scary prospect.
It has been a thorough performance from them, with nearly every player firing, and now they’re also settling incredibly well into their roles.
Data from Women’s T20 Batting App using Himanish Ganjoo’s T20 cricket BBB database up until October 2025, Arnav Jain’s fielding toolkit, Cricmetric, Cricket By JB’s WPL analyses & the Broadcast.
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