North Zone suffer a double setback

Air India completed a 70-run victory against North Zone in the CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy for women (50 overs) at the Central Polytechnic ground in Chennai on Sunday. North suffered a double setback with their captain, Richa Dubey, sent to hospital with a ligament tear in her knee, which might put her out of the rest of the tournament.

Set to score 196, North Zone made a sedate start with openers Gulshan and Jaya Sharma adding only 19 runs before Gulshan, looking tentative was caught in the slips off the bowling of Smita for 11 of 28 balls. Air India's Smita and Kusumlatha pegged North Zone further on the back foot with some good bowling especially by the former who kept pegging away at the batswoman's off stump but failed to find the edge.

The 14th over saw the off spinner Seema Pujari replacing Kusumlatha and she immediately struck a good line and length. After Richa had twisted her knee in the field, the 15th over witnessed the second casuality of the day when Mamta Maben dislocated her shoulder trying to dive and field the ball at mid wicket. Immediately after the incident, Jaya Sharma (13 runs off 41 balls) was stumped off the bowling of Seema Pujari with only 39 on the board. The start of the 22nd over saw Seema grass a second caught and bowled chance, but she immediately struck back in three balls, having M Raji caught at mid wicket,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 Malhotra without troubling the scorers. The match shifted well and truly in favour of Air India as a reault of that single over. Seema went on to contain the newcomers Gurdeep Kaur and Seema Wadwa and in an eight over spell she gave away only 15 runs.The North Zone innings lay in shambles and even a valiant effort of 40 runs by B Rajini could not come to their rescue as she quickly ran out of partners. The next five wickets fell with only 65 more runs being added to the total.

Earlier put into bat, Air India openers Anju Jain and Anjum Chopra made an earnest start adding 87 runs in 23.2 overs. Both Anju Jain and Anjum Chopra mixed caution with agression as they picked easy singles and never failed to despatch the loose balls to the boundary.

The session after the first drinks saw the first bowling change with off spinner Anjuman Bassi replacing Asha Jain in the 20th over. Anjuman struck immediately in her second over when she had Anjum Chopra (38 runs of 71 balls) caught behind at the score of 87 in the 24th over of the match. Then Mithali Raj joined Anju Jain who was growing in confidence with every over.

In the ensuing overs, Anju and Mithali played the North Zone bowling with aplomb as they churned Anjuman Bassi and leg spinner Rima Malhotra 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 only Anjum. But the drinks break saw the luck changing in North Zone's favour as Anju Jain was dismissed immediately, stumped of the bowling of Anjuman Bassi, adding one more to the total. This brought captain Purnima Rau to the crease but some disciplined bowling from Reema Malhotra saw her early exit after scoring only eight runs in 19 balls. The introduction of Reecha Dubey (5/24 in six overs) proved to be a big boon as she managed to pick up Mithali Raj (40 runs of 82 balls). She then sent back Smitha (1), Kusumlatha (5) and Sunaina for a duck. Air India thus failed to capitalise on the good start and managed to put up only 195 for eight wickets on the board.