Nearly half of Kotambi's packed holiday crowd had filtered out by the time fan favourites RCB slid to 35 for 5 inside the PowerPlay. Those who stayed were rewarded with fireworks they never imagined were coming.

At the start of the penultimate over of RCB's chase of 200 on Monday (January 26), an improbable 59 were needed off 12 deliveries. Richa Ghosh was well set, but running out of partners. Mumbai Indians skipper Harmanpreet Kaur tossed the ball to Amanjot Kaur, and for the first half of the over, Ghosh treated her with utter disdain - enough to dissuade the remaining spectators from trying to beat the traffic back into Vadodara.

Amanjot's attempted yorker first up slipped into a full toss. Ghosh went deep in her crease and launched it straight back over her India teammate's head, into the sightscreen. Rattled, perhaps, the bowler followed with a slot ball. Ghosh clobbered it just as cleanly, sailing it over the long-on ropes. The slower one came next, but it was short, and Ghosh pulled it authoritatively into the deep midwicket stands.

As Harmanpreet took her time conferring with Amanjot before the fourth delivery, the crowd found its voice again. Ghosh had already covered the arc between the sight screen and midwicket. Was this the moment for six sixes, after a historic first WPL century earlier in the day? Or better still - a coup?

But just as quickly, those hopes faded too. The change of angle worked for MI, and Amanjot, enough to get the destructive Ghosh off strike. Even Shreyanka Patil's back-to-back boundaries could only bring the equation down to a difficult 32 to get off the last six deliveries. Ghosh kept at it until the end, despite the odds stacked against her, to dispatch Amelia Kerr for consecutive sixes, but the dots that bookended those maximums proved fatal to her audacious plans.

Her hurt was evident in those frequent, frustrated self-inflicted hits onto her pads with the bat every time she failed to make contact. MI's collective sigh of relief was just as apparent. To a consolatory "well played, wonderful try" pat-on-the-back from the Malolan Rangarajan, Ghosh shot back, "sir, 15 run kam tha".

"That's the mindset Richa has," RCB's acting head coach said. "To get us to 15 shy of that target is a herculean effort, and I'm very happy for Richa. She is that kind of player: on her day she can do absolute magic and sometimes could massacre any sort of bowling.

"We've always been speaking about it that, as RCB, we want to put pressure back on the opposition. It's nice to see that when they had to defend about 52 [59] runs in the last-two overs, they felt the pressure. So, that tells us enough about Richa the player and to have scored four sixes back-to-back, it's good for her confidence also. Coming into a tournament, she's had very good impactful innings. Scoring 90-odd runs for her was very important."

Ghosh had one meaningful knock previously - a 28-ball 44 against Gujarat Giants; and just 93 runs across the six innings in WPL 2026 before Monday. While her 50-ball 90 came as a timely morale boost for the RCB finisher, it also helped the side minimize the damage to their NRR which only slipped from +1.236 to +0.947.

Rangarajan shed some light on how RCB went about re-calibrating the chase from 35/5 while, at the same time, also trying to mitigate the risk of a big loss should NRR become a decider going forward.

"With the situation we were in, we had lost five when Nadine and Richa built a partnership. In the first time-out - and this is interesting the way players think - they [decided] they were happy to chase down at 15 RPO in the last-five overs should they be there," Rangarajan explained. "And when we went back in the next time-out, when Richa was stranded there with Aru, we did try to give a different sort of target. Not the 200, a different target which we thought could help her get there. What we realized in this kind of pitch is if you aim for a different target, you might end up somewhere else.

"So, then we gave Richa something to look forward to in the next four overs and we spoke about giving ourselves the option of chasing 25 in the last over where anything could happen. That's exactly the conversation we had. That 'if you were still there in the last over and if you had to hit four sixes, give yourself the best opportunity'," he revealed.

Given Ghosh's power-hitting prowess the 32 they needed off the final-six deliveries wasn't improbable but, at the same time, exactly a maximum more than the realistic target RCB had backed themselves to get. Which begged a question. What if Patil - one of RCB's four retained players and a proven allrounder - had been backed slightly up the order instead of the usual no. 10 she'd been coming in at the last-two outings?

"We had targets in mind for what we wanted to get to. We were very realistic about what we should be looking to achieve and at what point can we actually try to put pressure back on them. When you've lost wickets and you've got about 100 runs to chase in the last-six, we didn't want to be in a situation where we're going for it prematurely and then end up with a 30 or 40-run loss," Rangarajan said.

"So, [we had to look at] what gives us the best opportunity to still get to those 95 runs in six overs [which] we were still looking to get. What's the best way we can get to 95 with the resources we have? The paramount thing was, can we look to chase down 25 runs [in the last over]? Yes? So, if you take 25 out of 90, you're talking about 65 runs in the next-five.

"What can Aru start trying to do? Can she look at a couple of boundaries? She started teeing off. With Sayali Satghare again, there were 17 or 18 balls left. What can Sayali do?

"We know the impact Shreyanka can create, and it's a very fair question [if she should be promoted from the current no. 10] because If she has more deliveries can she score a lot more? That's something we'll consider for sure going forward. But, the thinking at the time was, can we get a batter who is just able to get Richa on strike or take a boundary.

"When Radha [Yadav] was sent up the order, there weren't too many takers for it. Sayali also bats well; she's done well for Mumbai domestically. And we have a lot of faith in Sayali and the areas she can hit. After that, it gets easy for us to know when to send Shreyanka," he reasoned.

Eventually the points went to Mumbai, but Ghosh's defiance ensured RCB remained perched atop the table without a severe dent to their NRR and the hopes of a direct ticket to the finale still intact.