The team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) have put together for the forthcoming inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League and it has impressed former India opener, Aakash Chopra.
“They have assembled a good team. They will beat all other franchises if you play a seven-a-side match today because they have such a strong team. The first name that came in the auction was Smriti Mandhana’s and they went 3.4 crores,” said a delighted Akash Chopra praising the squad formation of RCB.
With the aid of their strategy of spending large on highly sought-after cricketers, RCB were able to get some of the finest players from all over the world. Smriti Mandhana became the most expensive player in the competition after they paid Rs 3.4 crore for her in the first-ever WPL auction earlier this month. In the WPL 2023, Mandhana will serve as RCB’s captain.
Together with Mandhana, RCB also recruited England captain Heather Knight, New Zealand captain Sophie Devine, and great Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry.
Chopra is impressed with RCB’s plan of bringing in strong Indian talent in addition to experienced star players.
If the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and other Women’s Premier League (WPL) clubs compete in a seven-a-side match, according to Aakash Chopra, the RCB will meet triumph.
At the WPL 2023 auction earlier this month, the Bangalore-based franchise spent 11.9 crore to assemble a full-strength 18-member roster.
Chopra took to the words during #AakashVani, a daily sports programme on JioCinema, “What’s special about the team is that they have gathered a lot of captains. They took Smriti Mandhana, Ellyse Perry, who they got for a very low price, Heather Knight, Sophie Devine, and they built a great team.”
Ellyse Perry and Sophie Devine, who cost 50 lakh and 1.7 crore respectively, were RCB’s second and third selections, respectively. In the latter phases of the auction, they also bought Heather Knight for just 40 lakh.
Aakash Chopra noted that the Royal Challengers Bangalore will field a playing XI that includes three promising Indian players in addition to four overseas players, “If we have to talk about the Indian line-up, then with Smriti Mandhana, they took Richa Ghosh and Renuka Singh Thakur, and if we look at their Top 7, they are a very strong team to look at.”
Recently, Renuka claimed five wickets in the T20I World Cup 2023. Richa finished the World Cup as India’s second-highest run scorer with 136 runs at a strike rate of 131.
He further added, “In terms of bowling, the team has Renuka Singh Thakur, which is a great acquisition for the simple reason that there are not many Indian fast bowlers, and Renuka Singh Thakur at this point in time is the best fast bowler in the country, and she is in the team along with the best batter in the country as well.”
Talking more about the decent formation of the batting department, he stated, “In batting, they have Smriti Mandhana, Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Erin Burns as well although I am not counting her here, and then Richa Ghosh – batting looks quite okay.”
“The player who can play best in the T20 format is Richa Ghosh, whom they have, and in today’s scenario, Richa bats really well in the lower order. So RCB is loaded with a lot of experience and superstars, with the best batter, best bowler, and best striker in Richa Ghosh,” he concluded.
RCB squad for WPL 2023:
Smriti Mandhana (C), Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Renuka Singh, Richa Ghosh, Indrani Roy, Disha Kasat, Shreyanka Patil, Kanika Ahuja, Asha Shobana, Erin Burns, Heather Knight, Dane van Niekerk, Preeti Bose, Poonam Khemnar, Komal Zanzad, Megan Schutt, Sahana Pawar
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