India Red pick up Women's Challenger Trophy

VADODARA: All round performance from skipper Amita Sharma and Archana Das helped India Red pick up the Women's Challenger Trophy at Motibaug Ground here on Tuesday. India Red beat India Blue by 41 runs in the final match. Sharma and Das scored runs in heaps and also bagged wickets to help their team post an easy victory.
Having won the toss, India Red elected to bat first but the top order failed to give the team a steady start.Opener M Meheta was bowled by Jhulan Goswami for a duck while M Shalini was bowled by M Das for the score of one run. Opener K V Jain held fort at one end by scoring 37 runs off 94 balls but wickets kept tumbling at the other end. India Red was tottering at 88 runs for five wickets in 22nd over. However, a crucial partnership of 73 runs between Sharma and Das for sixth wicket turned the tables on India Blue team.
While Sharma scored 56 runs off 82 balls Das scored 34 runs off 50 deliveries to take their team's score to 179 runs. For India Blue A I Khader took three wickets by giving away 29 runs. India Blue never seemed to be in hunt as it kept losing wickets at regular intervals. The top order was back in the pavilion by 17th over and the team was struggling at 64 runs for four wickets. Harmanpreet Kaur scored a valiant 78 runs off 98 balls that included 12 boundaries.
But her innings went in a vain as nine batswomen of her team failed to reach double digit score. India Blue was bowled out for 138 runs in 43.1 overs. Sharma bagged two wickets while Das and P Yadav bagged three each for India Red team.