Sixes and sighs: What Ghosh's late fireworks taught RCB

Nearly half of Kotambi's packed holiday crowd had filtered out by the time RCB slid to 35 for 5 inside the PowerPlay. Those who stayed were rewarded with fireworks they never imagined were coming.

At the start of the penultimate over of RCB's chase of 200, an improbable 59 were needed off 12 deliveries. Richa Ghosh was well set, but running out of partners. Mumbai Indians skipper Harmanpreet Kaur tossed the ball to Amanjot Kaur.

Amanjot's attempted yorker first up slipped into a full toss. Ghosh launched it straight back over her India teammate's head, into the sightscreen. The bowler followed with a slot ball. Ghosh clobbered it just as cleanly, sailing it over the long-on ropes. The slower one came next, but it was short, and Ghosh pulled it authoritatively into the deep midwicket stands.

But just as quickly, hopes faded. The change of angle worked for MI, getting the destructive Ghosh off strike. Even Shreyanka Patil's back-to-back boundaries could only bring the equation down to a difficult 32 off the last six deliveries. Ghosh kept at it until the end, dispatching Amelia Kerr for consecutive sixes, but the dots that bookended those maximums proved fatal.

Her hurt was evident in frequent, frustrated self-inflicted hits onto her pads. To a consolatory pat-on-the-back from Malolan Rangarajan, Ghosh shot back, "sir, 15 run kam tha".

"That's the mindset Richa has," RCB's acting head coach said. "To get us to 15 shy of that target is a herculean effort. She is that kind of player: on her day she can do absolute magic and massacre any sort of bowling. We've always been speaking about putting pressure back on the opposition. It's nice to see that when they had to defend about 59 runs in the last two overs, they felt the pressure."

Ghosh had one meaningful knock previously – a 28-ball 44 against Gujarat Giants; and just 93 runs across six innings in WPL 2026 before Monday. Her 50-ball 90 came as a timely morale boost and helped minimize the damage to RCB's NRR, which only slipped from +1.236 to +0.947.

Rangarajan shed light on how RCB re-calibrated the chase from 35/5 while trying to mitigate the risk of a big NRR loss.

"In the first time-out, they decided they were happy to chase down at 15 RPO in the last five overs should they be there," Rangarajan explained. "In the next time-out, we gave Richa something to look forward to in the next four overs. We spoke about giving ourselves the option of chasing 25 in the last over where anything could happen. That 'if you were still there in the last over and if you had to hit four sixes, give yourself the best opportunity'."

Given Ghosh's power-hitting, the 32 needed off the final six deliveries wasn't improbable. This raised a question: what if Shreyanka Patil – one of RCB's four retained players and a proven allrounder – had been promoted from her usual No. 10 spot?

"We had targets in mind. We were very realistic about what we should be looking to achieve and at what point we could actually try to put pressure back on them," Rangarajan said. "The paramount thing was, can we look to chase down 25 runs in the last over? If you take 25 out of 90, you're talking about 65 runs in the next five."

"We know the impact Shreyanka can create. If she has more deliveries can she score a lot more? That's something we'll consider for sure going forward. But, the thinking at the time was, can we get a batter who is just able to get Richa on strike or take a boundary. After that, it gets easy for us to know when to send Shreyanka," he reasoned.

Eventually the points went to Mumbai, but Ghosh's defiance ensured RCB remained perched atop the table without a severe dent to their NRR, with hopes of a direct ticket to the finale still intact.