Sikkim end Senior One-day Trophy campaign with a win, Chandigarh into quarters

The sun finally rose for Sikkim as they lodged their maiden points of the Senior Women’s One-day Trophy beating Arunachal Pradesh by a handsome 79 runs in their final Plate Group encounter of the competition on Wednesday (March 11) in Siechem Stadium in Pondicherry. Arunachal Pradesh, on the other hand, end their campaign with zero wins from nine matches while Chandigarh, who thumped Nagaland on the day, thus qualify for the quarterfinals by the virtue of their table-top finish with maximum 36 points.

Skipper Ananya Upendran, who has led the Sikkim batting all through the tournament, once again gave the much-needed push at the top of the order with a 54-ball 42 before Archana’s 66-ball 40 gave them the boost in the middle. Shubhi Pandey played a vital 43 not out off 51 balls towards the end to take Sikkim past the 200-run mark – also their first in this competition. Pebi Gara was the most successful bowler for Arunachal with figures of three wickets for 39 runs.

Chasing 203 for victory, things never really took off for Arunachal as they kept on losing wickets with just three of their batters registering double figures. Opener Neelam Rajput was the only Arunachal batter to provide some resistance with a fighting 52 off 97 balls as they were eventually bowled out for 123. Munnu starred with the ball for Sikkim picking up three wickets. For the record, Upendran finished on top of batting and bowling charts for Sikkim ending with 339 runs -- including a century -- and 14 wickets respectively in nine matches.

Meanwhile, for Chandigarh, it was just a stroll in the park thrashing Nagaland by whopping 118 runs. With half-centuries from Amanjot Kaur (73) and Monika Pandey (67), Chandigarh posted 210 runs for the loss of five wickets before coming out to bundle Nagaland for just 92. Kaur (3/16) and Parul Saini (3/24) both took three wickets each for the winners.

In the final match of the day, Pondicherry lost to Jammu and Kashmir by four wickets.

Brief scores:

Plate Group

Sikkim 202/5 in 50 overs (Shubhi Pandey 43*, Ananya Upendran 42; Pebi Gara 3/39) beat Arunachal Pradesh 123 all out in 40.3 overs (Neelam Rajput 52; Munnu 3/14, Tabita Subbu 2/22) by 79 runs.

Chandigarh 210/5 in 50 overs (Amanjot Kaur 73, Monika Pandey 67; Sariba 2/42) beat Nagaland 92 all out in 35.4 overs (Madhumonti 44*; Amanjot Kaur 3/16, Parul Saini 3/24) by 118 runs.

Pondicherry 128/7 in 50 overs (Karuna Jain 79*; Bismah Hassan 2/26, Sarla Devi 2/31) lost to Jammu & Kashmir 129/6 in 48.1 overs (Meenu Singh Salathia 46*; Rebecca 3/14) by four wickets