East Zone captain Deepti Sharma’s all-around performance guided her team to a one-wicket win over South Zone in the cricket’s Senior Women Inter Zonal Multi-Day Trophy 2023-24 final on 11 April 2024.
The winning team captain got a winning cheque of Rs 50 lakhs and a trophy, while the runners-up South Zone got a cheque of Rs 20 Lakhs. It also ended the domestic women's cricket season for 2023-24.
The final of the Senior Women Inter Zonal Multi-Day Trophy was held at the Maharashtra Cricket Stadium, Pune, Maharashtra. The four-day final finished within three days.
Deepti Sharma, after taking 10 wickets in the match, scored a crucial 46 runs on the penultimate day of the four-day final match to help her team successfully chase down the South Zone's target of 184 runs.
The match went to the wire, with the East Zone having lost 9 wickets at 178 runs; however, the tailenders A B Das (12 not out) and Titas Sadhu (4 not out) led their team to victory.
Brief Scores:
South Zone: 133 and 179 in 70.5 overs (Miriyala Durga 64, Minnu Mani 31; Deepti Sharma 6/61).
East Zone: 129 in 43.4 overs (Richa Ghosh 25; Minnu Mani 5/47, Sunanda Yetrekar 2/17, Sanjeevan Sajana 2/6) and 184 for 9 in 61.3 overs (Deepti Sharma 46, Richa Ghosh 33; Sahana S Pawar 3/44, Minnu Mani 3/65).
Player of the Match: Minnu Mani, Captain of South Zone
Player of the tournament: Deepti Sharma
Senior Women's Inter-Zonal Multi-Day Trophy 2024 is a red-ball cricket tournament organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for women's cricketers in India. It was also the first time that red-ball cricket was organised for domestic women's cricket after 2019. Six teams participated in the Trophy: West Zone, Central Zone, East Zone, North-East Zone, North Zone, and South Zone.
The matches were played at Pune Cricket Club Ground, D Y Patil Academy, and MCA Cricket Stadium Pune.
The final was played at the Maharashtra Cricket Academy, Pune.
All the matches were of three days duration while the final was of four days. North Zone and South Zone directly qualified for the semi-finals.