At 10:05 PM, at the fall of the third wicket, Radha Yadav emerged from the dugout, rolling her shoulders and walking towards the pitch slower than she usually does, to take guard in the middle. It was an unusual sight, unlikely to have too many contenders for the most unconventional cricketing decision in WPL's short history.

It wasn't an experimental promotion for a pinch-hitter. It was just as slated on the team sheet. Following her were six other bowlers and fellow bowling all-rounders to hold the batting hopes of a middling run chase.

Radha's self-confessed credentials with the bat - and her role in the middle order in domestic cricket - aside, only twice has she batted above No 8 in T20Is. For a player with a highest score of 14 in T20Is, and 27* across all premier T20 games (in which she has batted at No 8 or below on 39 out of 50 occasions), it was a heavy responsibility to bear.

Thus, when she walked in to bat with the scoreboard reading 62 for 3 in the seventh over, it doesn't entirely come as a surprise that RCB didn't really make a 155-run chase - the kind of score for which the RCB coach would have 'given an arm' - seem like a stroll.

It took Amelia Kerr only one ball to get Radha to play the wrong line and clean her up with a googly. Three deliveries later, Richa Ghosh departed, and at 65 for 5, RCB were left playing the chase despite holding the upperhand for the initial 23 overs of the contest.

That RCB's decision left them in such a position wasn't by accident. It was by design. Despite having the services of the hard-hitting Georgia Voll on the bench, they went in with the additional bowlers. Of the nine options available, only six were used. So rich were their bowling reserves that let alone the options of Grace Harris and D Hemalatha, even No 9 batter Prema Rawat's spin wasn't needed.

"It was a selection call [to not play Georgia Voll]," Malolan Rangarajan, the head coach of RCB, admitted following their team's win in the WPL 2026 opener against Mumbai Indians, on Friday. "It was the combination we wanted to go in with. Historically, if you saw RCB ever since 2024, we've always had an overseas spinner in our line-up, and we believe that's the way we'd like to line up. With that said, anything could happen. We were very clear.

"If you see even where we batted Radha, it's not something that's just happened one day prior. Radha bats for India A at number 4 and 5. Radha bats for Baroda at 4 and 5. So, we're seeing how well we can combine our players. And with Aru, she's been batting very well. She has a clear game plan, she knows how she can score runs. Everybody has a different way of scoring runs.

"Today required her to buckle down a bit. Unfortunate, the way she got out. If given an option, I know she'd say she'd want to hit it further. And she has our full backing to hit it further next time."

Furthering that explanation, he added. "There's a lot of work that's been put behind the scenes in the last two months. So, we're just not rocking up one day prior to the game and picking an 11. A lot of thought, a lot of detail [has gone behind] understanding, on how we want to play and what it takes to win the tournament. So, it was just a combination thing.

"We backed Linsey [Smith] because we think she's a world-class bowler. She won two titles in the last eight months, with the Northern Superchargers and the Hobart Hurricane Women. She's been doing well. So, we'll back her. We'll look to back all our players, not only Linsey Smith. Everybody knows what's happening. They're well-informed, they know their roles."

Different players chipped in at various points to ensure that RCB's thought process was validated. Arundhati Reddy ensured it wasn't a free-fall for RCB following Ghosh's dismissal, and the game stretched long enough to keep the defending champions on their toes, while Prema Rawat chipped in with quick runs under pressure late in the chase.

Like Radha, these (Arundhati, Shreyanka Patil, Prema Rawat) are all players whose batting credentials outside of domestic cricket, hasn't been demanded as frequently as they would've liked. However, RCB's hopes of crossing the finish line yet again rested on de Klerk's late assault - the kind of which had been put to display to bail South Africa out at critical times during the recent World Cup.

De Klerk enjoyed her share of luck. Dropped thrice and survived a run out opportunity. The chase too didn't pace the way she had planned it out, needing to score 8-an-over in the last four overs. But when pushed to a corner in the final over, she could muscle two sixes and as many boundaries.

For a match that went so close, in a contest where RCB played the chase in times when they should have had their noses ahead, a more balanced line-up could have probably tilted the situation in their favour. At a venue where 7 out of 10 games were won by the chasing team in WPL 2023, RCB had the upperhand after winning the toss (even as there was no dew - as per Malolan). To cement that position of strength, Lauren Bell's opening spell had firmly pushed the defending champions on the backfoot.

The game was quite an anomaly from the perspective of Mumbai Indians' batting too.

In swinging conditions, Amelia Kerr - who had slotted in to open the innings in the absence of Hayley Matthews - was all at sea; first beaten by an inswinger and then thrice in succession failing to connect a drive to outswingers. She took 11 balls to get off the mark, and eventually top-edged a hoick to the extra cover fielder. Nat-Sciver Brunt missed a drive and was stumped off the third ball, falling for a single digit score for the first time in 13 innings. Harmanpreet Kaur got a few hits going but remained largely scratchy before falling on 20.

The combined total of the veteran trio was 28. It was a rare failure; not the sort of start MI were used to getting in the last three seasons. MI's top five, one of the strongest in the competition, had accounted for 3579 runs at an average of 30.85 over the past three seasons. With Yastika Bhatia having moved to Gujarat Giants and Matthews being unavailable for the opening encounter, the onus was on the trio to control MI's innings. When these five played, the lowest they had combined to score was 37.

So, it was an unfamiliar scenario for MI. But just like de Klerk, S Sajana took advantage of being put down twice (straightforward chances at mid wicket to D Hemalatha and to Sayali Satghare at mid off) early in her innings to plunder 45 runs in her 25-ball stay in the middle. She was supported by Nicola Carey, who added 40 more to help MI to a respectable total, even if under-par.

Quite contrastingly, RCB powered away to a strong start, almost threatening to chase down the target before the defending champions could get into the longish tail. Grace Harris and Smriti Mandhana opened the carnage, taking apart Sciver-Brunt and Carey to hammer 39 runs in three overs. But then, with a few wickets falling, the momentum flipped in a matter of few minutes and the question over the combination came haunting.

The fact that RCB was always shaping up to be a team packed with bowlers and bowling all-rounders was noticeable at the end of the auctions itself. To add to it, when it was time to search for a replacement for Ellyse Perry, they roped in Sayali Satghare.

Explaining the rationale, Malolan said, "In the auction, obviously, we picked Voll in the first batter's set. And then, an opportunity came up for us. We'd already secured the service of Nadine. Once we lost the bid for Shikha [Pandey], we knew what we could achieve if we didn't get Shikha. So, Grace Harris became an opportunity for us to capitalise on, along with Pooja [Vastrakar] and Aru. For that money, we were able to get three players, which also was planned.

"Once you have a player like Grace, you could see what damage she could do in the first three overs. The way we look at it is, let her bat 8, 12, 10, 15 overs trying to do that. We don't want to stop her. Take pressure off Smriti. Mandhana There's a lot of noise around the obvious player missing for us (Ellyse Perry). And there are a lot of ways you can skin the cat. People want us to be batting heavy. We could go batting heavy or we could ask our existing batters to do the job. So, the way we see it, we want our batters to go in. If it's Grace, she goes in, does what she does best: Take the bowlers on, put pressure back on the opponents."

A victory to kickstart the campaign only strengthens the belief in that unconventional and bold plan, the two points offering ample cushion for the plans to be in place for a while. "We've given everyone a role," Malolan admitted. "It's a good thing that we won. We can again look to back players into that role."