Royal Challengers Bengaluru players celebrate the wicket of Harleen Deol of Gujarat Giants during match 12 of the Women's Premier League 2025 (WPL) at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. (Photo: Sportzpics for WPL)With 8 runs needed off 24 balls for Gujarat Giants to complete a comfortable win, the crowd at M Chinnaswamy Stadium could still be heard chanting “RCB, RCB, RCB!” The decibel levels, of course, quickly went down as Phoebe Litchfield smashed a six over square leg and GG soon completed a comfortable six-wicket win with 21 balls to spare. RCB’s 125/7 was never going to be enough and with this result, they have lost three straight matches at their home ground.It is now well registered that RCB receive the widest support in the WPL, right from the first time they hosted matches last season to even the three matches so far. There was a video circulating on social media when RCB hosted Mumbai Indians, with the visiting captain Harmanpreet Kaur trying to drown out the noise by placing her fingers inside the ears. On the flip side, the home side haven’t been able to convert their home advantage into wins.Firstly, losing three tosses hasn’t helped. It has been firmly established in both legs of the WPL this season that chasing is definitely more advantageous (only one match so far has been won by a team batting first).After losing the toss again on Friday, Mandhana was asked about losing both the previous games at home and she pointed out how both were close affairs. Indeed, MI won with a ball to spare while UP Warriorz prevailed after the first ever WPL Super Over – a match where RCB plucked defeat from the jaws of victory after posting 180 while batting first.The match on Friday was, worryingly for Mandhana and RCB, one-sided. “This is really going to hurt us because in all three departments, we didn’t do well,” said Mandhana bluntly in the post-match interview. She refused to put either one of the three disciplines under pressure, but losing their big three batters within the powerplay was a recipe for disaster. Mandhana pointed to her own innings of 10 off 20 balls, where she was repeatedly beaten when trying too hard to hit through the powerplay. When she was out caught in the deep off the excellent Tanuja Kanwer, RCB were reduced to 25/3 and they never recovered.The defeat also dragged RCB’s Net Run Rate down from +0.619 to +0.155 while GG improved from -0.974 to -0.450. RCB, GG and UPW are all locked in now on 4 points from 5 matches. RCB still have a slight edge due to the close nature of their defeats. They have one match to go in Bengaluru though, and another defeat in front of home fans will likely leave the defending champions in a spot of bother.Brief Scores: RCB 125/7 (Kanika Ahuja 33, Tanuja Kanwer 2/16) lost to GG 126/4 in 16.3 overs (Ash Gardner 58, Renuka Singh 2/24) by 6 wicketsVinayakk Mohanarangan is Senior Assistant Editor and is based in New Delhi. ... Read More© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd