In a season that began with high hopes and a radical squad overhaul, UP Warriorz find themselves on the precipice of a disappointing departure from the 2026 Women’s Premier League (WPL). The 18th match of the tournament, held at the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara on Thursday, served as a grim confirmation of their struggles. Facing a clinical Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) Women side, the Warriorz slumped to a crushing eight-wicket defeat, a result that effectively sealed RCB’s direct ticket to the finals while leaving UPW languishing at the bottom of the table.
UP Warriorz’s dismal run continues against RCB in WPL 2026
The match in Vadodara was a microcosm of the Warriorz’s entire campaign. Despite a promising start where captain Meg Lanning (41) and Deepti Sharma (55) shared a 74-run opening stand—their first 50-plus partnership of the season—the team collapsed from a position of strength. Following Lanning’s dismissal by Nadine de Klerk, the middle order crumbled, losing wickets in clumps, a recurring nightmare for the franchise this year. They eventually limped to a subpar 143/8.
The defence was equally fragile. RCB’s Grace Harris, playing with a point to prove against her former peers, dismantled the UPW attack with a blistering 75 off 37 balls. Alongside Smriti Mandhana’s unbeaten 54, RCB chased the target in just 13.1 overs. The “muted non-celebration” at the fall of Harris’s wicket late in the game spoke volumes; the damage was already done, and the Warriorz knew their playoff dreams were mathematically fading into oblivion.
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Meg Lanning reveals key factors behind UP Warriorz’s early elimination in WPL 2026
Post-match, a composed yet clearly disappointed Lanning was candid about the factors that derailed their season. Underpinned by a lack of consistency, Lanning noted that while the team showed “flashes of brilliance,” they failed to sustain momentum. “Every time we’ve got some momentum with the bat and built a partnership, we’ve sort of lost that and then lost some wickets in clumps,” Lanning remarked in the post-match press conference. This inability to “finish off” games proved fatal in a tournament where the margins for error are razor-thin.
Lanning also addressed the elephant in the room: the wholesale restructuring of the squad. After retaining only uncapped batter Shweta Sehrawat, the franchise hit the reset button at the mega auction, bringing in Lanning as captain and Abhishek Nayar as the first-time full-time head coach. While Lanning refused to use the overhaul as an excuse, she acknowledged the difficulty of building synergy in a short timeframe.
She added,”It’s always a challenge for every team coming together after a mega auction… you need to try and put it together as best you can.”
Ultimately, the Warriorz’s 2026 run—marked by five defeats in seven games—highlights the growing pains of a new unit. Despite the world-class spin of Sophie Ecclestone and the individual brilliance of Deepti, the lack of a cohesive killer instinct left them trailing behind the league’s pace-setters.
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This article was first published at WomenCricket.com, a Cricket Times company.
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