WPL Season 2 (2024): RCB Women Win Maiden Title by 8 Wickets, Deepti Sharma Named Player of the Tournament

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women won their first WPL title on 17 March 2024 at Arun Jaitley Stadium (Feroz Shah Kotla) in New Delhi, defeating Delhi Capitals by 8 wickets in the WPL Season 2 final. Sophie Molineux (RCB) was Player of the Match. Deepti Sharma (UP Warriorz) was named Player of the Tournament despite UP Warriorz failing to qualify for the playoffs — a rare individual honour from a team that did not reach the knockout stage. Ellyse Perry (RCB) won the Orange Cap with 341 runs at an average of 68.20; Shreyanka Patil (RCB) took 13 wickets for the Purple Cap.

RCB Women's Maiden Title: The First Chapter of a Long-Running Story

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women winning WPL Season 2 was a significant moment in Indian women's cricket, partly because of the parallel with RCB Men — who waited 17 years across the IPL (2008-2025) before winning their first title. The women's franchise, by contrast, won in their second season. RCB Women's Season 2 title was built on exceptional team depth: Ellyse Perry providing batting consistency at the top of the order, Sophie Molineux producing the match-winning all-round final performance, and Shreyanka Patil's 13-wicket bowling campaign (combined with her Emerging Player award) showing that RCB had developed domestic Indian talent alongside high-quality overseas signings.

Deepti Sharma: Player of the Tournament Without Reaching the Playoffs

Deepti Sharma (UP Warriorz) winning the WPL Season 2 Player of the Tournament (Most Valuable Player) award despite her team failing to make the playoff stage is among the most unusual individual honours in women's franchise T20 cricket. Deepti — India's right-arm off-spinner and right-handed middle-order batter who has become one of women's cricket's most complete all-rounders — scored 295 runs at an average of 98.33 and took 10 wickets in 8 matches: figures that would have won the tournament award in most seasons regardless of which team she played for. Her MVP award from a non-playoff team reflects how genuinely individual her contribution was.

WPL Season 2 in Context

WPL Season 2 (2024) confirmed that the Women's Premier League — launched in 2023 as India's first major women's franchise T20 competition — had competitive balance: Mumbai Indians had won Season 1 (2023), and a different team (RCB Women) won Season 2. The competition's ability to attract all five IPL franchise groups to invest in women's teams, combined with India's BCCI infrastructure and global overseas player talent, made the WPL the most commercially significant women's franchise T20 competition in the world by its second season. RCB Women's title — and the surrounding individual performances from Perry, Deepti, Molineux, and Patil — provided the WPL with the narrative depth that sustains franchise sports competitions.