Senior Women One Day Trophy
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
KOLKATA, Oct 28: Nadia Chowdhary was simply on song, while Bismah Hassan won hearts and Sarla Devi stole the show as J&K crushed Sikkim by 9 wickets in their Plate Group opening tie of the BCCI’s Senior Women One Day Tournament at Eden Gardens, here today.
Earlier, J&K skipper Sandhya Sayal won the toss and put Sikkim into the bat.
Batting first, Sikkim started on a disastrous note as Sarla and Bismah created havoc by seaming and wobbling the ball both ways. Both of them sent four rival batters back to the pavilion for just 7 runs in the first 4 overs. The entire Sikkim team bundled out for a paltry total of 33 runs in 18.1 overs. None of the Sikkim batters could cross the double figure mark as J&K spinners Nadia Chowdhary and Sandhya Sayal made full use of the brilliant start provided to them by the medium pace duo of Sarla and Bismah by spinning webs around the rival batters.
For J&K, Nadia Chowdhary was the wrecker-in-chief, who took 4 important wickets by conceding 11 runs in her 5 overs, while Sarla Devi captured 3 important wickets by giving away 11 runs in her 4.1 overs. Bismah Hassan was more economical and spent just 4 runs in her 5 overs. She bagged 2 wickets on two consecutive balls and missed the hat-trick by a whisker. Skipper Sandhya Sayal was magnificent with her off-spin, bowling 4 overs by conceding just 1 run and taking 1 important wicket.
In reply, J&K rode on a superb batting display by Sarla Devi and chased the target easily in 8.2 overs, losing just one wicket to win the match by 9 wickets. Sapna Jamwal (4) was the only batter to be dismissed, while Sarla and Rudrakshi Chib remained unbeaten on 24 and 4 runs respectively. For Sikkim, Tabita Subba was the only successful bowler, who took the lone wicket to fall.
J&K will face Arunachal Pradesh in their second outing tomorrow.
In other two matches of the Plate Group, Bihar outplayed Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland got the better of Manipur at 22 Yards Salt Lake Kolkata and JU Second campus Salt Lake, Kolkata respectively.