Allround Saee Purandare too good for Pondicherry

It was a day of low-scores as Bihar, Chandigarh and Meghalaya emerged victorious by beating Mizoram, Manipur and Pondicherry respectively in the Senior Women's One-day Trophy. The match between Meghalaya and Pondicherry turned out to be most thrilling one out of the three games competed in the plate group.

In-form player Saee Purandare yet again scored a century and picked up three wickets which enabled Meghalaya beat Pondicherry by 35 runs. Batting first, her efforts propelled Meghalaya to a respectable total of 167 before the bowlers' bundled Pondicherry to just 132. The 102 she made was her third century in the competition helping her top the table with 542 runs in the nine matches.

In another match at Puducherry, Chandigarh kept their winning streak going by thrashing Mizoram by 122 runs. The victory was eighth for them in the competition and they are the only unbeaten team with a match to go. Batting first Chandigarh rode on skipper Amanjot Kaur's 57 and Manisha Badhan's 53. The duo shared a stand worth 71 runs for the third wicket which helped Chandigarh post 197. In reply, Mizoram kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were eventually bundled out for just 75 runs. Only Buley Ruchita offered some fight for Mizoram and top-scored with 38.

In the last match of the day, Bihar downed Manipur by eight wickets.  Bihar's clinical run-chase was set up by their openers Prity (67) and Sana Ali (66). The pair added 148 runs for the opening wicket which led Bihar to a comfortable victory in the end.

Brief Scores

Plate Group

Chandigarh 197/5 in 50 overs ( Amanjot Kaur 57, Manisha Badhan 53; Irene 2/25, Buley Ruchita 1/34) beat Mizoram 75 all out in 38.2 overs (Buley Ruchita 38; Nandani Sharma 3/9, Amanjot Kaur 2/10) by 122 runs.

Manipur 157/9 in 20 overs (Rebika S 56, Chingkhei M 38; Rachana Kumari 3/16, Nivedita 2/28) lost to Bihar 158/2 in 31.1 overs (Prity 67, Sana Ali 66; Meri K 2/17) by eight wickets.

Meghalaya 167/8 in 50 overs (Saee Purandare 102; Divya Shanmugam 3/37, Rebecca 1/18) beat Pondicherry  132 all out in 48.5 overs (Karuna Jain 64; Saee Purandare 3/8, Vandana Mahajan 2/21) by 35 runs.