da dobrowin： After beginning both their bowling and batting in lacklustre fashion,Indian Railways came through strongly thanks to a thoroughlyprofessional performance
da winzada777： Anand Vasu04-Apr-2000After beginning both their bowling and batting in lacklustre fashion,Indian Railways came through strongly thanks to a thoroughlyprofessional performance. Beating West Zone by 74 runs, IndianRailways notched up their second win of the series and handed WestZone their first loss.West Zone have won both the matches they have played so far. IndianRailways have played one match (against Central Zone), winning it inconvincing fashion and are looking to further their chances in thetournament. The clash between the two teams at the Railway Stadiumwould decide who had the upper hand in the tournament.Indian Railways along with Air India are the established big teams. Inthe past they have dominated tournaments almost completely. A lot ofpeople expected the same of the CricInfo Rani Jhansi Trophy 2000. WestZone apparently were not told about this. In what must be called aspirited effort, the West Zone team snatched the initiative from thefirst over of the innings.As she has done so efficiently in the past, the West Zone skipperKalyani took the new ball herself when she lost the toss and was askedto field. Beginning with a maiden, Kalyani set the tone for the restof the bowlers. At the other end, Neelima Waghmare bowled withdetermination. Having bowled out her 10 overs on the trot yesterday,she proceeded to the same today. In just the 4th over, she beatPurnima Chowdury for pace, leaving the stumps in disarray. Despitebeing injured while fielding, she soldiered on, never losing out onpace. Attempting to field a ball on the rather uneven outfield, shewas surprised by uneven bounce and took a knock on the side of herhead.Turning down offers of treatment till she finished her spell, Neelimaended with figures of 10-5-10-1. What more could a captain ask for?What made the spell specially valuable was the fact that it cameagainst one of the better teams of the tournament. In starting withsuch a tight spell, the advantage was with West Zone.Sonali Chandok who has been the pick of the spinners so far once againdrove the point home, beginning her spell with a wicketmaiden. Beating Reshma Gandhi through the air, she had her caught atmid off by Neelima. After the fall of two early wickets IndianRailways were forced to spend a period of time consolidating theirinnings.West Zone too had its share of problems. After the frontline bowlershad done their bit, they seemed to be short of one bowler. SonaliChandok was clearly not at her best and was taken off after an initialspell of 4-2-11-1. Batting all rounder Chandarani bowled her offspinners rather loosely and was taken apart by Hemalatha. The 32ndover of the innings, bowled by Chandarani read 4 4 4 . 4 1. That tookall the pressure of the Indian Railways batswomen.Hemalatha grew in confidence as the overs progressed and the runsbegan to come thick and fast. She swung the ball effortlessly throughthe on side, unafraid to take the aerial route. Even the few chancesthat were on offer for West Zone went abegging as Sulakshana Naik hada bad day behind the stumps. Failing to collect the ball cleanly onmore than one occasion, the ball squirted through and stumpingopportunities were missed.When Hemalatha was finally caught in the deep by Vaishali playing atired shot, she had already made an invaluable 69. Kalyani had thedismissal to her credit, but by then, the damage was done. 45 overshad were completed and Indian Railways were well on their way to afighting total.After Hemalatha’s dismissal, Deepa Kulkarni took on the mantle ofsenior batswoman and continued the assault. Hitting crisply throughthe line, she helped herself to an unbeaten half century, crossing thelandmark in the last over of the innings. Indian Railways ended theirinnings on 184/5.Star of yesterday’s game Amutha Shinde and experienced campaigner ArtiVaidya got West Zone off to a flyer. Tackling the Indian Railwaysopening bowlers with ease, the right and left combination carted theball to all corners of the park. Driving and cutting powerfullythrough the off side the two took West Zone at a pace of almost fourruns an over till the 10th over. Then Indian Railways veteran DianaEduljee made her presence felt.Coming in to the attack with the score on 38/0 after 10 overs, Dianacompletely sealed one end, giving away no runs. Bowling two maidens onthe trot, she began to apply the brakes on the West Zone batting. Inher third over, she let two balls slip down the leg side and waswhipped away behind square for boundaries by Amrutha. Was thestranglehold broken? Far from it. When she was on 44, Amrutha tried toheave Rupanjali Shastri through the on side and missed theball. Rapped on the pads, she was adjudged leg before. With the scoreon 61, the momentum shifted completely towards Indian Railways.West Zone skipper Kalyani walked in amidst high expectation. Indeed,it would take an innings of character from her to see West Zonethrough. What happened in the next few minutes sealed West Zone’sfate. Running late on what was a tight single to begin with, Kalyaniwas found well short of her ground by a direct hit from RenuMargaret. With the captain gone without scoring West Zone’s hopes wereall but dashed.While Arti Vaidya waged a lone battle at one end, wickets tumbled atthe other. Spinners operating in tandem made run scoring verydifficult. Arti showed vast reserves of defiance, not getting boggeddown by the tight bowling. Every once in a while she took theinitiative, came down the wicket and lofted the ball over the infield.When Arti was caught behind attempting to cut spinner Deepa Kulkarniit was curtains for West Zone. Her innings of 33 bolstered WestZone. While she was at the crease there was at least the hope of alate charge.A silent West Zone dressing room watched the proceedings gloomily astheir side slumped to 110 all out after being 61 for no loss.Diana Eduljee proved to be the big difference between the twoteams. Having played the game for years now, she knew every trick inthe trade and did not hesitate to unveil a few. When Indian Railwayswere batting her voice could be heard loud and clear from the dressingroom appealing for wides. When Arti Vaidya, in some ways the lasthurdle for Indian Railways, was dismissed, Diana ran across andcongratulated the umpire for upholding the appeal. Needless to say,the umpire did not appreciate the gesture. Call it playing the gamehard or call it gamesmanship (gameswomanship in this case?). Eitherway, it won Indian Railways a game that had virtually slipped out oftheir grasp.
