Anuja Patil and Preeti Bose star as India Blue win back to back

India Blue registered their second victory over India Green in the BCCI Women’s T20 Challenger Trophy in Alur. India Green faced their second loss after having lost against India Red in the last match.

India Blue captain Mithali Raj decided to field first after winning the toss. India Green got their first blow when the opener Jemimah Rodrigues got dismissed for a duck by Suman Gulia's delivery. Anuja Patil handed over the second breakthrough to India Blue by taking Sushree Dibyadarshini in the 2nd over. Soon the other opener Priya Punia too joined them in the pavilion after scoring 5 off 7.

India Green captain Veda Krishnamurthy too failed to perform. She got out by a run out from Vanitha VR for 3 off 18 in the 6th over. They managed to score only 13 runs at the end of the 6 overs with the loss of 4 wickets. Anuja Patil had another plan in her mind as she picked up another wicket of Arundathi Reddy in the 8th over and ended her spell with brilliant figures (4-0-4-3).

Prathyusha Challuru and Sushma Verma tried their best to build a partnership. They both added 30 runs before the former one was dismissed by a direct through from Neha Tanwar in the 17th over. Along with Patil, Preeti Bose did the rest of the job for the India Blue. She picked up Sukanya Parida and Sushma Verma in the 18th over and Krutika Chaudhari in the last over.

India Blue bowlers didn't allow any India Green batters to stay a long time at the crease. Prathyusha Challuru was the highest scorer for India Green, having scored 18 off 36. Apart from her and Verma (14 off 29), no other batter could reach the double-digit. India Green put up 46 runs on board at the end of the 20 overs; which was the lowest score by far in this series. Anuja Patil and Preeti Bose scalped 3-wickets each while Poonam Yadav and Suman Gulia picked up 1-wicket each for India Blue.

While chasing 47, all-rounder Hemalatha Dayalan opened the innings with Vanitha VR. But before they could build a partnership, Rajeshwari Gayakwad picked up Vanitha VR  for 2 in the 2nd over. Hemalatha Dayalan scored 13 off 23 before she became the 2nd victim of Gayakwad. Taniya Bhatia was promoted at number 3 and she played a sensible inning. She scored an unbeaten 29 off 27 and helped India Blue to register their second win by 8 wickets with 10.1 overs to spare.