da casino： North Zone managed to pull off a five-wicket win against East Zone inthe CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy Women’s cricket tournament at the IITChemplast ground in Chennai on Tuesday
Natarajan Sriram04-Apr-2000North Zone managed to pull off a five-wicket win against East Zone inthe CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy Women’s cricket tournament at the IITChemplast ground in Chennai on Tuesday.At the start of the match, both North and East were looking for theirelusive first win in the tournament. After dismissing East for 142,North started disastrously by losing both openers Jaya Sharma (0),Gulshan (2). But the East bowlers could not maintain the pressure andwhen Rakhi Mehra (67) and Rajni Bhalla (17) came together, one saw asmany as three bowling changes in five overs. They both put on a 57-runpartnership in 13.4 overs for the third wicket before Rajni Bhalla wascaught at short cover by Saswathi off Seema Singh when she tried toclear the fielder.Incidentally, East’s bowling was in sharp contrast to that of NorthZone. There were far too many extras conceded in the early overs evenas they were able to pick up the two early wickes. This, coupled withsome wayward bowling later on saw Rakhi Mehra pick some easy runs andlay the platform for a North Zone win.In the company of Gurdeep Kaur (27), Rakhi took the match well andtruly out of East Zone’s hands with a 68-run fourth wicket stand in 24overs. But Kavitha came back in the 37th over to pick up Gurdeep andVandna off successive deliveries. But that was too precious and toolittle for the occasion and North completed the formalities thanks toRakhi Mehra and Reema Malhotra.Rakhi had a shaky start and was helped on the way by some shoddyfielding during her stay at the crease. Though her first scoringstroke was a boundary, she was not able to find the timing and theconviction. Even as she played some good shots and hit someboundaries, she had as many as three lives.Earlier, put in to bat East made a patchy start with openers NeetuSingh (26 runs off 40 balls) and Saswathi Mukerjee (5 runs off 20balls) putting on 20 runs in 5.4 overs. Saswathi fell to an innocuousshot when she mistimed a drive to give a simple catch to Jaya Sharmaat the covers. Then Chandrabarti Paul (37 runs in 75 balls) joinedNeetu and took the score to 61 with a fruitful 41 run stand in 9.2overs before Neetu was adjudged leg before to Anjuman Bassi. LaterAsha, who bowled ten overs on the trot, managed to find the edge ofGeetha Samantrai’s bat after scoring five runs in 21 balls.The middle overs saw the North Zone bowlers restricting the Eastscoring rate and picking up wickets at regular intervals. Kavita andChandrabarti put together a 27-run fourth wicket stand in 11.5overs. But the run out of Kavitha (10) triggered a little collapse asEast lost both Chandrabarti and Pratima cheaply for the addition ofonly seven runs to the total.In the end Anjuman Bassi picked up the wickets of Jhulan and Babushain the space of eight balls. The East innings folded up in the thirdball of the 46th over with the total at 142. Off-spinner AnjumanBassi was the pick of the North bowlers with figures of 3 for 27 inher quota of ten overs.