Purnima pilots Air India to second win

Air India, powered by an allround performance by captain Purnima Rau, won their second match by nine wickets against East Zone in the CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy women's cricket tournament at the Southern Railway ground in Chennai on Monday.

After restricting East Zone to a score of 148, Air India coasted to victory with Anju Jain (32 runs of 61 balls) and Purnima Rau (82 not out off 73 balls with 12 fours) putting on 84 runs for the first wicket. Promoting herself up the order, Purnima opened her account with a scorching cover drive off Rumeli's first over which raced to the boundary. Then Anju joined the act with two fine flicks for fours in the next over of Rumeli. The breezy start that Air India got prompted the East Zone captain to bring in Babusha in the sixth over of the innings. But even that move backfired as Purnima took three fours off Babusha's first over. By the end of the tenth over Air India were 56 for no loss.

Both Purnima and Anju displayed keenness in going for their shots. Purnima in particular played all round the wicket and was never afraid of going down the track against the spinners. Of the 12 boundaries that she hit, the cover drive, the off drive and the sweep were a treat to watch. Both the openers guided Air India to 84 in the 17th over, when Anju gave a return catch to Madhusmitha when she tried to loft one past the bowler.

Anjum Chopra (23 runs off 40 balls) then joined Purnima and the two thrashed the East bowlers in an unbeaten partnership worth 65 runs in 11.1 overs to seal the victory.

Earlier East Zone won the toss and elected to bat and the match started as scheduled even after one of the umpires failed to turn up. This prompted East Zone's Mitu Mukerjee to stand in as a leg umpire with the other official changing ends after every over. Opening the batting, East Zone's Neetu Singh and Saswati Mukerjee were circumspect against the accurate Air India opening attack of Smita Harikrishna and Kusumlatha.

In the fifth over, Saswathi tried to get on with the proceedings and slashed the second ball from kusumlatha past point for the first boundary of the innings. The very next delivary was dispatched to the backward square leg boundary. But two balls later Saswati dabbed the ball to mid wicket and in trying to sneak a single, was beaten by the throw from Mamta Ranade. The first wicket fell at 19 and Chandrabarti Paul was promoted up the order to joined Neetu. Chandrabarti opened her account immediately with a screaming cover drive off Kusumlatha and the very next ball repeated the stroke for three runs.

She then sent Smita to the fence over mid wicket in the 13th over. This prompted Purnima to go for a double change in the bowling. Left arm spinner Usha Bogade came in for Smita and Purnima brought herself on at the other end.

The first drinks break gave the Air India captain the time to re-arrange her strategies and soon after, Usha drew Neetu out of the crease and had her stumped for 27. At 67 for two in 18.5 overs, Gita Samantrai joined Chandrabarti. Bowling a nagging line and length, both Usha and Purnima kept the batswomen on a leash all through the middle overs. The three Air India spinners Purnima, Usha and Seema bowled tidily and restricted the scoring rate.

East progessed ever so slowly to a score of 117 for the loss of six wickets at the end of the 40th over. The start of the last stretch saw East lose Pratima (11) and Seema Singh in the 42nd over. At the end of their 50 overs East managed to score 148 for the loss of nine wickets.