Lauren Bell just keeps putting batsmen in a bind with dots galore with 75% of her 36 balls in the powerplay being dots.
Astonished, Smriti Mandhana, who was positioned at mid-off, swiftly turned to see the replay on the large screen to her right. After bowling a length ball that pitched on middle and leg, Lauren Bell deftly swung away from Harleen Deol. The wicketkeeper moved to her left first because it was thrown from a broader angle. To keep up with the diabolical outswinger, Richa Ghosh had to halt and leap in the opposite way. At 111.6 kph, it was Bell’s fastest ball of the evening up to that point.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s (RCB) bowling in the powerplay set the tone for their early control and subsequent victory against UP Warriorz (UPW) in their second consecutive WPL 2026 match. Bell, who is participating in the competition for the first time, has designed it.
Her strategy has been straightforward: bowl the outswinger at a good length and let the ball’s erratic trajectory take care of the rest. The outcome? She has bowled 27 dot balls out of 36 in the powerplay thus far, or 75% of the total. Shabnim Ismail of the Mumbai Indians (MI) approaches with 72.22% (26 dots out of 36 balls).
During the previous round, Lauren Bell was a member of UPW but did not participate in any games. She has worked on managing the outswing and pitching it the manner she wants in addition to applying her recent experience playing in the ODI World Cup in India. In the season opener, Amelia Kerr learnt the hard way when she played out a maiden and was unable to lay bat to ball for the first five balls.
Meg Lanning’s time came yesterday. With 12 runs, 23 balls, one wicket, and four dots in six balls, Bell was already ahead going into the contest. Lanning was pushed back by her shortish ball at the beginning of the game. Lanning’s weight was on the back foot when she bowled the full away swinger outside off, but she went for the drive and lost.
UPW had changed their opening lineup by sending Deol to counterattack Bell rather than Kiran Navgire, who had teamed Lanning in their initial game. Bell gave Deol seven dots in nine balls, including a soaring slice to mid-off that ended her stay.
In T20 cricket, winning early exchanges doesn’t guarantee much. However, RCB’s powerplay bowling has been so effective in two games that they were able to limit opponents to manageable totals even after losing 42 and 41 at the end (17-20) against UPW and MI, respectively—the fourth and joint fifth most costly back-end performances out of nine this season.
Bell and Mandhana would understand that things won’t always be this way.