East Zone and South Zone share Day 1 honours

Pune, Apr 9 (PTI) Titas Sadhu and Deepti Sharma claimed four wickets each to rattle South Zone, but East Zone produced a sloppy batting display as both teams shared the opening day honours in their senior women inter-zonal multi-day summit clash here on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old Bengal pacer Sadhu blew away the South Zone top-four en route to fine figures of 4/30, before Deepti showed her off-spin magic in a miserly display (14.5-5-28-4) as South Zone folded for 133 in 54.5 overs after opting to bat at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium ground here.

But, East Zone failed to capitalise and lost half of their batters to be 108/5 at close on the opening day. They trail by 25 runs.

Minnu Mani (2/38) and Sunanda Yetrekar (2/16) took two wickets each for the South.

Shabnam Shakil (1/21) gave the breakthrough in the second over, dismissing Uma Chetri with the scoreboard reading 5/1.

Skipper Deepti had a brisk start with four hits to the fence but she fell victim to Kerala off-spinner Minnu's guile and was trapped lbw for 22 (34 balls).

At that time, Minnu was on a roll as she then dismissed another set batter in Richa Ghosh (25 off 43 balls) with a return catch.

Sunanda chipped in at the other end with wickets of Dhara Gujjar and Rizu Saha.

At close of play, Jharkhand batter Durga Murmu was batting on 22.

Brief Scores: South Zone: 133 from 54.5 overs (Arundhati Reddy 57, Tamanna Nigam 29; Titas Sadhu 4/30, Deepti Sharma 4/28).

East Zone: 108 for 5 from 34 overs (Richa Ghosh 25, Durga Murmu 22 batting; Minnu Mani 2/38, Sunanda Yetrekar 2/16). PTI TAP PDS PDS