Central cruise past East

Central Zone comfortably beat East Zone by seven wickets in the CricInfo Rani Jhansi tournament at the SRMC ground in Chennai today. After knocking over East for just 93 in the 45th over, Central coasted home with their reply revolving around an unbeaten 40 (65 balls) from keeper Arundhati Kirkire. She also effected three dismissals behind the sticks besides completing two run outs and surely must be a cinch to be selected in the World Cup probables. Bindeshwari Goyal's spell of 3-11 had created the opening for Central in the first place. And spare a thought for Sabari Mukherjee who took two stunning catches, off her own bowling, that would have done Jonty Rhodes proud.

East won the toss and elected to bat with captain Pratima Chakraborti and Neetu Singh opening the innings. Things began brightly for them as Neetu straight drove Varsha to the boundary in the second over of the day. The score had mounted steadily to 15 in the fifth over before Central captain Leena Muley bowled Neetu with one that took the top of off stump as she played inside the line.

Chandrabarti Paul arrived at the crease and immediately found the gaps on either side of the wicket for a couple of twos. But in the very next over, a dreadful mixup with Pratima saw her depart without further addition. Pratima played to point, both ran, both stopped, and then continued on their way. Ranjana Gupta fired in a good throw to the keeper, finding Chandrabarti short of her ground. With the fielders at mid on, mid off, covers and mid wicket on the edge of the circle, Pratima and Kavita Roy were able to take singles to these regions without discomfort.

But disaster was lurking round the corner when Pratima pulled one to square leg, who was a little closer. Bindeshwari's throw was too good for Kavita as the batswomen scrambled frantically for a run. Two balls later, without any addition to the score, Pratima swept one into the hands of Bharati Verma at squareleg to make it 29/4 in the 12th over. Two new players, Geeta Samanta Ray and Rashmita Mohanty, were now facing a Central attack with their tails up.

Both lived dangerously with Rashmita hitting the ball uppishly into no woman's land between square leg and midwicket and Geeta being dropped by Priyanka at mid on off Bindeshwari. Rahul Singh's left arm tweakers did the job for Central Zone, trapping Rashmita lbw on the backfoot when she tried to pull one that was a bit too full for the stroke. The score was now 37/5 and in the next over (the 18th) it became 38/6 as Geeta tamely drove a half volley straight back to the bowler Bindeshwari.

Just seven runs came in the following nine overs, as Saswati Mukherjee and Rumeli Dhar treated the bowling with utmost respect, and Central broke through again in the 27th over when left arm spinner Preeti Dimri trapped Saswati leg before. The 50 mark came up in the 28th over and Rumeli then proceeded to beef up the score with some clean striking that fetched boundaries to long on and midwicket off Varsha.

The promising 16-year-old medium pacer Jhulan Goswami was stumped off a wide from Varsha in the 35th over and the innings was finally terminated with Ranjana Gupta's first legal delivery, from which Sabari Chatterjee was also stumped. Rumeli had run out of partners after making a valiant 33 (82 balls). Six bowlers got amongst the wickets for Central Zone but Bindeshwari was far and away the best and her figures of 10-3-11-3 reflected it.

Central openers Bharati Varma and Priyanka Sailey quickly took charge and guided the score to 16 in the fourth over before an out of the world catch by Sabari Chatterjee prematurely ended Bharati's innings. Bharati got a top edge as she tried to work Sabari away on the onside and the bowler ran around the non striker who was in her way and dived full length to complete the catch. Umpire Sumathi Iyer had to consult the square leg umpire before raising the finger.

In the next over Jhulan Goswami surprised Priyanka with an off cutter that went through her defences and disturbed the off stump. Central were in just a spot of bother at 22/2 but Chitra Bajpai and Arundhati Kirkire guided them out of the woods with a fluently compiled third wicket stand. Sabari had been taken off after her sixth over went for 11, including three wides and a trademark Chitra heave over the fielder at midwicket for four.

Arundhati was in even better nick and cut Jhulan to the square third man fence for her first boundary. Off break bowler Saswati Mukherjee failed to latch on to a return catch that Arundhati offered in her first over but off the very next ball she made up for that disappointment by dislodging Chitra's off bail when the latter tried to repeat the same shot.

Ranjana Gupta, playing her first match of the tournament, joined Arundhati with the score at 66/3 and pottered around for a while before Sabari took a second astonishing catch in almost similar fashion. Ranjana sliced a full toss in the air in the direction of mid on and Sabari once more took the c&b at a 180 degree angle to the ground. Rahul Singh arrived with 19 more needed and survived a loud appeal for a catch by the keeper as she swung across the line and missed. But Arundhati was in full cry now and ensured that no more mishaps occurred on the way. Two boundaries off Saswati in the 30th over closed out Central's second win in three matches.