Deepa stars in Railways' comfortable victory

Displaying all round efficiency, holders Indian Railways thrashed Punjab by nine wickets in the semifinals of the Cricinfo Trophy Senior Women's National Cricket Championship at the Gymkhana Ground in Jorhat on Wednesday. Railways' superiority was so marked that they wrapped up the 90 overs a side two day semifinal on the first day itself.

Having to score 85 for an entry into the title round, Railways reached the target in 29.2 overs. The only player to be dismissed was Hemalatha Kala who scored eight in a total of 18. But opener Rajani Sharma (33 not out off 44 balls) and Rajini Venugopal (39 not out off 56 balls) added 67 runs for the unbroken second wicket off 24.2 overs to help Railways reach the target comfortably.

Earlier, electing to bat, Punjab were all out for 84 runs in 57.5 overs. Punjab started disastrously, losing four of its top order batswomen with only 38 runs scored. They then lost wickets at regular intervals. Only Gulshan (25), Anjali Sharma (25) and Rajani Bhalla (12) reached double figures for Punjab. Deepa Kulkarni was quite devasatating in picking up five wickets for three runs in 8.5 overs as she wiped out the Punjab tail.