da bwin： Air India completed a 70-run victory against North Zone in theCricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy for women (50 overs) at the CentralPolytechnic ground in Chennai on Sunday
Natarajan Sriram02-Apr-2000Air India completed a 70-run victory against North Zone in theCricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy for women (50 overs) at the CentralPolytechnic ground in Chennai on Sunday. North suffered a doublesetback with their captain, Richa Dubey, sent to hospital with aligament tear in her knee, which might put her out of the rest of thetournament.Set to score 196, North Zone made a sedate start with openers Gulshanand Jaya Sharma adding only 19 runs before Gulshan, looking tentativewas caught in the slips off the bowling of Smita for 11 of 28balls. Air India’s Smita and Kusumlatha pegged North Zone further onthe back foot with some good bowling especially by the former who keptpegging away at the batswoman’s off stump but failed to find the edge.The 14th over saw the off spinner Seema Pujari replacing Kusumlathaand she immediately struck a good line and length. After Richa hadtwisted her knee in the field, the 15th over witnessed the secondcasuality of the day when Mamta Maben dislocated her shoulder tryingto dive and field the ball at mid wicket. Immediately after theincident, Jaya Sharma (13 runs off 41 balls) was stumped off thebowling of Seema Pujari with only 39 on the board. The start of the22nd over saw Seema grass a second caught and bowled chance, but sheimmediately struck back in three balls, having M Raji caught at midwicket,trying to get on with the scoring.In the same over Seema again picked up a wicket with the last ball.Beating the batswomen through the air she bowled Reema Malhotrawithout troubling the scorers. The match shifted well and truly infavour of Air India as a reault of that single over. Seema went on tocontain the newcomers Gurdeep Kaur and Seema Wadwa and in an eightover spell she gave away only 15 runs.The North Zone innings lay inshambles and even a valiant effort of 40 runs by B Rajini could notcome to their rescue as she quickly ran out of partners. The next fivewickets fell with only 65 more runs being added to the total.Earlier put into bat, Air India openers Anju Jain and Anjum Chopramade an earnest start adding 87 runs in 23.2 overs. Both Anju Jain andAnjum Chopra mixed caution with agression as they picked easy singlesand never failed to despatch the loose balls to the boundary.The session after the first drinks saw the first bowling change withoff spinner Anjuman Bassi replacing Asha Jain in the 20thover. Anjuman struck immediately in her second over when she had AnjumChopra (38 runs of 71 balls) caught behind at the score of 87 in the24th over of the match. Then Mithali Raj joined Anju Jain who wasgrowing in confidence with every over.In the ensuing overs, Anju and Mithali played the North Zone bowlingwith aplomb as they churned Anjuman Bassi and leg spinner RimaMalhotra for some easy pickings. And in the course of the partnership,Anju Jain reached a sedate half century after facing 80 balls.The end of the 35th over saw Air India at 139 for the loss of onlyAnjum. But the drinks break saw the luck changing in North Zone’sfavour as Anju Jain was dismissed immediately, stumped of the bowlingof Anjuman Bassi, adding one more to the total. This brought captainPurnima Rau to the crease but some disciplined bowling from ReemaMalhotra saw her early exit after scoring only eight runs in 19balls. The introduction of Reecha Dubey (5/24 in six overs) proved tobe a big boon as she managed to pick up Mithali Raj (40 runs of 82balls). She then sent back Smitha (1), Kusumlatha (5) and Sunaina fora duck. Air India thus failed to capitalise on the good start andmanaged to put up only 195 for eight wickets on the board.