Lone warrior: On a day when wickets fell like nine pins, Arundhati, left, scored a half-century.
| Photo Credit: Lavanya Lakshmi Narayanan
With a spectator-less echoes of Maharashtra Cricket Association here to bear witness, East Zone ended day one of the final of the Senior Women’s Inter Zonal Multi Day Trophy against South Zone with an advantage of bare margins on Tuesday.
South opted to bat in the hot and dry conditions. Young speedster Titas Sadhu came through immediately, cleaning up the South top four within the first 15 overs. The onus then fell on S. Sajana and Arundhati Reddy who looked to dead bat their way to safety to begin with. Deepti Sharma struck in the 25th over with a ball that rocked back into Sajana’s off stump.
Arundhati then found support in teenager Shabnam Shakil with a 44-run stand off 77 balls for the ninth wicket — the highest of the innings. The former also reached her fifty, her second in as many games, struggling with heat exhaustion all through. Sushree Dibyadarshini soon saw the back of Arundhati after she holed out to Uma Chetry. Deepti removed Shabnam to wrap up South’s innings for 133.
When East began its response, Shabnam, bowling in tandem with Arundhati, gave South a breakthrough in the second over itself, removing Uma Chetry for just four runs.
Deepti and Richa Ghosh then steadied the ship with a 34-run stand off 58 balls for the second wicket. Skipper Minnu Mani removed Deepti off her very first delivery. She also had Richa caught and bowled, a fantastic effort as the ball stayed low.
Dhara Gujjar, East Zone’s centurion from the quarterfinal, could not repeat her feat, falling to Sunanda Yetrekar in the 23rd over. From there on, Rizu Saha and Durga Murmu added a vital 44 runs off 70 balls for the fifth wicket, which Sunanda broke on the last delivery of the day.
The scores:
South Zone 133 in 54.5 overs (Arundhati Reddy 57, Deepti Sharma 4/28, Titas Sadhu 4/30) vs East Zone 108/5 in 34 overs (Richa Ghosh 25).
Toss: South.