A year of Planning - RCB captain Smriti Mandhana Reveals backroom Brainstorming behind WPL win

Smriti Mandhana led Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to their first franchise trophy when her team beat Delhi Capitals to win the second edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL).

The win ended RCB’s 16-year wait for a franchise trophy, with the men’s team drawing a blank ever since franchise cricket took birth in 2008.

Throwing light on the secret of success, Mandhana said the title triumph was a result of a whole year’s meticulous planning and strategizing on and off the field.

The core team and the management created a conducive dressing room environment that included a dedicated communication group for Indian domestic players in the off-season.

The result was not just the WPL trophy, but RCB also swept the Purple Cap and Orange Cap awards on offer. In addition to winning the Fair Play award, Ellyse Perry won the Orange Cap for most runs (347), Shreyanka Patil won the Purple Cap for most wickets (13) and also the Emerging Player of the Tournament award.

Mandhana said she was happy to see the RCB management trust her and set a winning culture. “The first thing, they were like, this is your team and build it the way you want to do it and set the culture. That was the biggest thing for me. And the second thing was that we really want to set a good culture in terms of, happy and positive stuff. So that was a big thing in terms of planning, how we want the team environment to be,” the 27-year-old captain said.

Detailing out how meticulous the planning sessions were, Mandhana said: “Then the second bit of planning, where we started chalking down names, started tracking players, like Sophie Molineux was injured last year. So we had to track her, whether she's doing fine, or what's happening. (Coach) Luke (Williams) being from Australia really helped."

The RCB captain also lauded the number of training camps the franchise had arranged ahead of the league. “One very good thing RCB did was they conducted several camps last year. Be it training camps, fitness camps, batting and bowling-specific camps, everything was done and that was also part of our planning. Our plan was to give a platform to domestic cricketers so that they were completely ready for this level,” she added.

The 27-year-old RCB captain added that video calls and forming a group for all domestic cricketers helped them build the camaraderie they now show. “Over the past one year we did a lot of video calls together. We had a group of our own Indian domestic girls and whenever they needed something we were all always there. So if you are working for a year, your job becomes easier when the season arrives. Once the season starts, it becomes a bit hard to put in that kind of work. So RCB worked on them for a year, and that really paid off a lot in terms of how they were confident,” Mandhana concluded.