RCB won the match with three wickets to spare.
Mumbai Indians captain Harmanpreet Kaur was left ruing the couple of missed chances after Nadine de Klerk clutch knock in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2026 opener. De Klerk single-handedly brought Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) back from a difficult situation, as they were reeling at 65 for 5, to win the curtain raiser clash in Navi Mumbai on Friday. However, this isn’t the first time de Klerk has been a problem for the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side, as she also played a similar match-winning knock against India in the ODI World Cup 2025 group stage clash in Visakhapatnam. Her half-century, aided by dropped catches, made all the difference.
In the opening match, RCB were reduced to 65 for 5 against the reigning champions. Grace Harris and captain Smriti Mandhana gave a blistering start, scoring 40 runs in just 3.4 overs, but then things slowed down. In the end, RCB were left needing 29 runs off the last two overs, and then 18 from the final one. With de Klerk still in, the game was wide open.
The South African player, batting at No. 6, first steadied the ship with Arundhati Reddy, forging a vital 49-ball 52-run partnership for the sixth wicket. While Shreyanka Patil fell cheaply, Prema Rawat contributed with two crucial boundaries, especially on the last ball of the penultimate over. While de Klerk’s critical half-century was a highlight, MI’s poor fielding was what everyone was talking about.
Reigning champions Mumbai Indians (MI) made several costly errors in the wee end. In the 19th over, delivered by Shabnim Ismail, de Klerk received two lifelines, which eventually cost MI a win.
On the first ball, the right-hander smashed a full delivery powerfully to Nat Sciver-Brunt at long-off, who dropped the sitter. It wasn’t enough that on the fourth ball, de Klerk mishit a slower ball high up, which Amelia Kerr at deep midwicket also dropped. De Klerk, aiming to keep the strike, even survived a run-out chance, attempting for a second run as wicket-keeper G Kamalini fumbled and broke the stumps with her hand instead of the ball.
In the final over, Sciver-Brunt bowled a couple of dot deliveries to start. But Nadine de Klerk, who was in a completely different zone altogether, smashed two sixes and a four to take the game to the final ball. She, in the process, brought up her half-century off just 41 balls.
Needing two runs off the last ball, a missed yorker from England captain allowed de Klerk to step back, create room to free her arms, and whack it straight over the bowler’s head for a boundary and sealed the deal for RCB. Notably, the target of 18 runs achieved by RCB is the second-highest in the final over of a WPL game, only behind the 19 runs scored by UP Warriorz against Gujarat Giants in Navi Mumbai in 2023.
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Mumbai Indians captain Harmanpreet Kaur was direct in her post-match comments and didn’t sugarcoat the mistakes made by their senior players.
“We know Nadine can score the required runs in the last over. We simply did not bowl well. These things happen. We gave her chances, and sometimes, batters play with a strong mindset. We missed those opportunities. We tried everything to win, but if we had bowled one good ball in the last over, we could have won,” said Harmanpreet Kaur in post-match presentation ceremony.
RCB, chasing 90 runs after already being five wickets down, set a new WPL record, surpassing the previous 82 runs. After Deepti Sharma (59 & 4/19), De Klerk, who bagged 4/19 with the ball, became only the second player to score 50+ runs and take more than four wickets in a WPL match.
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