RCB appoint Anya Shrubsole as bowling coach ahead of WPL 2026, to have a new head coach for Season 4

Former England pacer Anya Shrubsole has been roped in as the bowling coach for the Season 2 champions of the Women's Premier League (WPL), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), ahead of the 2026 edition. Shrubsole, who played alongside the RCB skipper Smriti Mandhana for the Southern Brave in the Hundred, last played for England in 2022 and retired from professional cricket in 2023, after leading her franchise to the title. The 33-year-old will replace Sunetra Paranjape, who was the bowling coach for RCB until 2025.

Shrubsole represented England in 173 international matches, including 86 ODIs, 79 T20Is and 8 Tests and was known for her lethal inswingers at a certain pace. Shrubsole and Mandhana have had an equation as colleagues previously and the latter will be keen to replicate the same for RCB, now as captain and bowling coach.

On the other hand, Malolan Rangaraj, who has served as a scout and fielding coach for the RCB franchise across men's and women's teams, will be taking over as the head coach for the franchise for the fourth edition, due to a conflict in schedule for the regular coach, Luke Williams.

Williams, who is the head coach at the Adelaide Strikers for WBBL, is also involved with the BBL franchise and with the WPL set to take place from early January to early February this time around, it will be clashing with the last 2.5 weeks of the Big Bash League. Hence, Rangarajan and Shrubsole will be heading the support staff, also featuring the likes of R Muralidhar, who will continue as the batting coach, alongside Navneeta Gautam, the head physio.

The WPL has set a retention deadline for all five teams for November 5 and hence, RCB too will be sweating over five names they want to retain ahead of the new cycle, which will begin with the player auction later this month.