Jammu, Oct 11: Teamwork helped young but well-knit side of Himachal Pradesh to outplay Jammu and Kashmir by 5 wickets in the ongoing practice match series as part of JKCA Senior Women T20 Team’s Preparatory Camp at JKCA Hostel Ground, here on Wednesday.
Earlier, winning the toss and batting first, J&K
scored a modest total of 99 runs in the stipulated 20 overs. Openers Shivanti Gupta and Anju Tomar after a sedate start took the score to 56 runs in 11 overs before Shivanti retired hurt at her individual score of 31 runs off 38 balls, studded with 3 boundaries. Anju contributed 37 runs off 42 balls with 4 fours.
Both the batters, especially Anju played too many dot balls in the earlier part of the innings and J&K were 19/0 in the first six overs. However, both compensated it with a galaxy of boundaries as J&K were 79/2 in 15 overs and managed to add just 20 runs in the last 5 overs to finish the innings at 99/5 in the allotted 20 overs. Chitra Singh Jamwal scored 13 off 17 balls, while Nadia Chowdhary and Rubia Syed fell cheaply on 7 and 5 runs respectively.
For Himachal Pradesh, Sonal Thakur, who bowled consistently well in this series was the pick of the bowlers, taking 2 wickets by conceding 21 runs in her 4 overs, while Rajana Thakur and Nikita Chauhan claimed one wicket each.
Himachal Pradesh, in reply chased the target in 18.4 overs, losing 5 wickets in the process, thus won the match by 5 wickets.
Riding on brilliant partnership by Shivani Singh and Vasvi, coupled with good start by the openers-Neha Kaith and Nancy, Himachal Pradesh despite a few hiccups chased the target comfortably in the 19 over. Shivani Singh and Vasvi scored unbeaten 25 runs with 3 boundaries each, while Neha and Nancy contributed 22 and 11 runs to the total respectively.
For J&K, Nadia Chowdhary took 2 wickets by conceding 24 runs in 4 overs, while skipper Sandhya Sayal and Rubia Syed claimed 1 wicket each.
Both the teams will take on each other in the final practice match of the series at the same venue tomorrow. Chandigarh was also part of this practice match series.
The team of Himachal Pradesh is being accompanied by Dr Geeta Mehta as the Manager; Yoginder Puri and Rahul Sharma as Coaches; Veena Pandey as Trainer and Dr Manisha Chaudhary as Physiotherapist.
