The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) Women decided to hand a debut to young all-rounder Gautami Naik for the match against the UP Warriorz (UPW) today (January 12) in the ongoing Women’s Premier League (WPL 2026). Notably, Naik has previously shared the dressing room with India opener and RCB captain Smriti Mandhana in the Women’s Maharashtra Premier League (WMPL).
Playing for the Ratnagiri Jets, Naik was Smriti’s opening partner in the WMPL.
The 2024 winners roped in the young talent for a price of INR 10 lakhs at the mega-auction in November. Naik impressed in both franchise and domestic cricket to land her maiden WPL contract.
In the WMPL 2025, she finished as the third-highest run scorer of the tournament with 173 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 133.08, including a fifty. She was also a part of the Maharashtra squad that won the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy 2025 and contributed with quickfire starts at the top of the batting order.
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Naik, who represented the U23 Maharashtra side had to shift bases to Nagaland after failing to get many chances to break into the senior team. Notably, Mumbai Indians (MI) player Poonam Khemnar had helped in making the move possible, where Gautami Naik eventually got a taste of senior women’s cricket.
After impressing for Nagaland, she turned out in an exhibition match for girls during the Men’s Maharashtra Premier League and got noticed by Kiran More, who invited her for MI trials and asked her to join Baroda in domestic cricket.
She played for Baroda for two years in white-ball cricket but deep down, the desire was to return to Maharashtra and she did and also won a title last year.
Now, with a WPL debut, Gautami will hope to impress in RCB colours and use the chance to get the attention of the national selectors too.
RCB Playing XI: Grace Harris, Smriti Mandhana(c), Dayalan Hemalatha, Gautami Naik, Richa Ghosh(w), Radha Yadav, Nadine de Klerk, Arundhati Reddy, Shreyanka Patil, Linsey Smith, Lauren Bell
UPW Playing XI: Kiran Navgire, Meg Lanning(c), Phoebe Litchfield, Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Shweta Sehrawat(w), Deandra Dottin, Sophie Ecclestone, Asha Sobhana, Shikha Pandey, Kranti Gaud
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