Bengaluru, Mar 2: Royal Challengers Bangalore batters struggled to force pace against an efficient group of Mumbai Indians bowlers, settling for 131 for six in their Women's Premier League match here on Saturday.
RCB would have been in deeper trouble had Elysse Perry (44 not out, 38b, 5x4) and Georgia Wareham (27, 20b, 3x4) not added 52 runs for the sixth wicket after MI decided to bowl first.
Mumbai were without their regular skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and premier pacer Shabnim Ismail, who have been nursing injuries, for the second match on the trot, but that did not affect their intensity on the field.
The RCB top-order batters did not have the required amount of patience to weather the storm when the MI bowlers struck a fine line early on.
Skipper Smriti Mandhana (9, 11 balls) grew impatient and looked to smash pacer Issy Wong out of park. But the shot neither had power nor timing as Nat-Sciver Brunt completed a simple catch inside the circle.
It was a similar case with some other RCB top-order batters such as Richa Ghosh and S Meghana who tried to break the shackles by force, not the best approach when the bowlers are on top.
Ghosh fell to pacer Pooja Vastrakar, drilling a drive straight to Sanjana Sajeevan to mid-off, and Meghana's weak pull off Brunt ended in the hands of Keerthana Balakrishnan near backward square leg.
But Perry showed how to score runs here, selecting her balls to perfection to punish the bowlers. She pulled and cut Amelia Kerr for boundaries in successive balls when the leg-spinner erred in her length.
She found an able ally in Wareham, who complemented Perry with good rotation of strike and occasional hits to the fence.
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Ranchi (PTI): A 25-year-old man, who works as a butcher, allegedly strangled to death his live-in partner and chopped her body into 40 to 50 pieces in a forested area in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, police said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Naresh Bhengra, was arrested.
The matter came to light after around a fortnight after the killing when a stray dog was found with human body parts near Jordag village in Jariagarh police station on November 24.
Bhengra was in a live-in relationship with the deceased, a 24-year-old woman also from Khunti district, in Tamil Nadu for the past couple of years. Sometime back, he returned to Jharkhand, got married to another woman without telling his partner anything and went back to the southern state without his wife to join her.
"The brutal incident occurred on November 8 when they reached Khunti as the accused who had married another woman did not wish to take her home. Instead, he took her to a forest near his house at Jordag village in Jariagarh police station and chopped the body into pieces. The man has been arrested," Khunti Superintendent of Police Aman Kumar told PTI.
Inspector Ashok Singh who investigated the case said the man worked in a butcher shop in Tamil Nadu and was expert in slicing chicken.
“He admitted chopping the body parts of the woman into 40 to 50 pieces before leaving those in the forest for wild animals to feast on. The police recovered several parts on November 24 after a dog in the area was seen with a hand," Singh told PTI.
Singh said that the woman, who was unaware of his marriage, pressured him to return to Khunti. After reaching Ranchi, they boarded a train on November 24 and headed to the man's village.
"Under a plan, the man took her to Khunti in an autorickshaw near his home and asked her to wait. He returned with sharp weapons and strangulated her with her dupatta after raping her. He then cut the body into 40 to 50 pieces and left for his home to live with his wife," Singh said.
The woman, however, had informed her mother that she had boarded a train and would be living with her partner, the police officer said.
Following the recovery of body parts, a bag was also found in the forest with the murdered woman's belongings including her Aadhaar card. The mother of the woman was called at the spot and she identified her daughter's belongings.
"The mother suspected the man behind the crime who after being nabbed by the police admitted to chopping the woman into pieces," the official added.
The incident has sent shockwaves among people in the region, with the Shraddha Walker murder case of 2022 still fresh in their memory.
Walker was killed by her live-in partner who chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in the jungle in South Delhi’s Mehrauli.