da bet vitoria： Railways got off to a winning start in the CricInfo Rani Jhansitournament at the AC Tech ground in Chennai today
da aviator aposta： Sankhya Krishnan03-Apr-2000Railways got off to a winning start in the CricInfo Rani Jhansitournament at the AC Tech ground in Chennai today. The spin troika ofRupanjali Shastri, Deepa Kulkarni and Neetu David ran rings around theCentral Zone batswomen to restrict them to 116 in the morningsession. After losing two relatively early wickets in reply, a durablethird wicket association between Rajini Venugopal and Hemlata Kala putRailways on the victory trail and they closed out the match by sixwickets with almost ten overs to spare.In a change of tactics , Central Zone decided to bat first on winningthe toss rather than chase a target which they had successfullyaccomplished yesterday. The dependable combination of Bharati Varmaand Priyanka Sailey opened the innings . Priyanka was clearly beingthe more flamboyant of the two while Bharati played the anchor role.The strategy seemed to be to keep wickets in hand by waiting for thebad balls and in the meantime, taking the singles aggressively. Therunning between the wickets was not the most professional, a littlemore method in the madness would have been desirable, but they managedto avert tragedy.The score had mounted to 34 in 13 overs when spin made its firstappearance in the form of Rupanjali Shastri’s off breaks. In the nextover the left arm orthodox tweakers of Neetu David wereintroduced. She kept Bharati quiet for four balls before the latterlost patience, going for a heave against the spin to be bowled.Chitra Vajpayee tried another cross batted swipe off Rupanjali, a laBharati, and was lucky to see it miss the stumps. But the writing wason the wall and she tried to cut one outside off in the same over onlyto nick one through to the keeper. She was gone for a fourth ballduck.This started a procession as Rupanjali then packed off Arundhati andPreeti Dudhe in her next two overs, also for ducks, to put Central indire straits at 41/4 in the 20th over. Priyanka had watched thebloodletting from the other end and she now got a partner in RahulSingh, coming in at No.6, who seemed to possess the same steelynerves. Neetu gave the ball plenty of air, inviting Priyanka to cometo the pitch of the ball, and the latter picked up the gauntlet toloft her for two fours to wide long on. A fielder was quietly put backon the long on boundary and Priyanka just could not resist launchingherself into another flighted delivery and holed out to her. If everan object lesson was delivered in how to buy your wicket, this wasit. Priyanka had made 24 (63 balls, 3 fours), which remained the topscore in the innings.Skipper Deepa Kulkarni, another left arm spinner, had put herself onby now and Rahul, after striking three boundaries, gave a tame catchto Balvir Kaur at midoff. Varsha Raphael played some attractivestrokes en route to 21 from 31 balls and after she was bowled byDeepa at 90, captain Leena Muley and Bindeshwari Goel delayed theinevitable. The innings finally folded up for 116 in the 48th over,with Rupanjali and Deepa both finishing with 3/21 from 10 overs,while Neetu bagged 2/27 from ten.Railways began slowly with openers Rajini Sharma and Reshma Gandhijust getting their eye in and not trying to do anything daring. Rajiniwas especially strong on the off side as she stroked two boundariesthrough the covers off Central captain Leena Muley. Off break bowlerVarsha Raphael had opened the innings from the pavilion end ratherthan the more conventional medium pace option of Neetu Singh. In thetenth over Reshma came into her elements with a boundary to square legand a fluent drive to wide long off that was stopped just inside therope. But in the same over, Varsha flattened Rajini’s off stump asshe played back to one that kept a trifle low. She was thensurprisingly taken off and left arm spinner Preeti Dimri, who was notplayed yesterday, came into the attack while at the other end, PreetiDudhe, the bespectacled leg spinner was given a fling. Dimri has anice easy action with economy of effort and struck by drawing Reshmainto a drive and beating her in the flight. Keeper Arundhati had thebails off in one quick motion and Railways were down to 31/2 in the14th over.This brought two relatively new batswomen to the crease in RajiniVenugopal and Hemlata Kala. They gave the bowling a wide berth atfirst as the two Preetis despairingly attempted to make furtherinroads. Dudhe was getting good bounce and Arundhati collected one atchest height that just beat the outside edge of Hemlata’s bat. Thelatter had another close call as she drove Dudhe on the up to coverbut it just failed to carry to the lunging fieldswoman who took it onthe half volley. But the longer these two stayed at the wicket, themore emboldened they became.The running between the wickets was a class higher than anything elseseen in the match, with the ones being converted into twos withcheek. The same could not be said of the Central fielding though whichwas rather unedifying at times. The run stand was finally broken inthe 35th over by left arm spinner Rahul Singh when Hemlata stepped outto cart her away but played inside the line to leave her wickets in amess. Two balls later Balvir Kaur was bowled in identical fashion toleave the score at 93 /4 and Railways were making a struggle out of anordinary task. Captain Deepa Kulkarni brought some composure to theproceedings and with Rajini continuing to fire away at the other end,the win was finally sealed in the 41st over, with the latter unbeatenon 42 (87 balls, 4 fours).
