Heather Knight stars in England's thrilling win against Board President's XI
Mumbai: Left-arm medium-pacer Komal Zanzad impressed with a three-wicket initial burst but Board President's XI failed to defend their modest score of 154 and lost by two wickets against the visiting England XI in a practise game here on Monday.
Komal who is yet to play for India but has taken an amazing 9 for 8 against Haryana in the domestic one-day tournament of the BCCI last season, rocked the visitors with her devastating spell of 3 for 9 in her first six overs at the Wankhede Stadium.
England XI were gasping at 11 for 4 by the fifth over triggered by the triple strike by the Vidarbha captain before Heather Knight, with a steady, unbeaten 64 off 86 balls, lifted the team out of the rut and guided it past the finish line in the 38th over.
Apart from Komal, Reemalaxmi Ekka and spinner Tanuja Kanwer picked up two wickets apiece.
Earlier, the local outfit lost wickets in clusters and were bowled out in 49 overs with lower order batswoman Minnu Mani emerging the top scorer with 28 in 57 balls that contained one of the two sixes struck in the innings.
The practise game will be followed by three ICC Championship 50-over contests between
On winning the toss and batting first the home team got off to a reasonably good start of 27 runs at a good rate before losing two wickets in successive overs.
The first to fall was the in-form Smriti Mandhana who started in aggressive fashion and struck four fours before she was caught behind off Anya Shrubsole, the wrecker-in-chief with four wickets to her credit, for 19 off 15 balls.
One-down
A brief revival was orchestrated by opener Priya Punia (15) and Harleen Deol (21) but the visitors struck three quick blows to send back both these players as well as Veda Krishnamurthy and half the side was back with 70 on the board.
