Lanning, Sutherland hand DC seven-wicket win over UP Warriorz in WPL
Vadodara, Feb 19 (PTI): Skipper Meg Lanning struck 69 off 49 balls as Delhi Capitals produced a solid batting effort to beat UP Warriorz by seven wickets and register their second win in the Women's Premier League here on Wednesday.
Sent into bat, UP Warriorz rode on opener Kiran Navgire's quick-fire half-century to post 166 for seven.
But the total was not enough as besides Lanning, Annabel Sutherland played a crucial 35-ball 41-run knock and was ably supported by Marizanne Kapp (19 not off 17) and opener Shafali Verma (16 off 16). Delhi completed the chase with a ball to spare.
DC were off to a brisk start with Shafali and Lanning sharing 65 runs in just 41 balls for the opening stand.
Shafali was going great guns before she was caught by Chinelle Henry off Deepti Sharma in the seventh over.
Jemimah Rodrigues too didn't last long as she departed in the next over without opening her account, trying to paddle sweep Sophie Eccestone but only managing to get a top edge and Rajeshwari Gayakwad did the rest.
Sutherland and Kapp then shared 48 runs for the fourth wicket to take DC home.
With 32 needed from the last three overs, Kapp brought the equation down by hitting Ecclestone for two consecutive boundaries.
With 11 required off the last over, Sutherland struck two boundaries off Tahila McGrath to take her side home.
Earlier, sent into bat, Navgire (51 off 27 balls) and Dinesh Vrinda (16 off 15) shared 66 runs in 5.5 overs to give a great start to UP Warriorz innings.
Thereafter, UP Warriorz lost five wickets for 52 runs.
Sheweta Sehrawat (37 off 33) and Grace Harris (12) added 36 runs for the fifth wicket before the latter spooned a straightforward catch to Shafali Verma at mid-off off the bowling of pacer Arundhati Reddy.
Towards the end, Chinelle Henry (33 not out off 15) played a brief little cameo to take UP Warriorz past 160.
For DC, Annabel Sutherland was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 2/26 from her four overs.
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Former railway minister Mukul Roy dies at 71
Kolkata (PTI): Former railway minister Mukul Roy, once regarded as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's most trusted lieutenant and the TMC's principal strategist, died of cardiac arrest at a private hospital here early on Monday.
He was 71, and is survived by his son, Subhranshu Roy.
He breathed his last around 1.30 am at the hospital in Salt Lake, Subhranshu Roy said.
He had been suffering from multiple ailments and was in and out of the hospital over the past two years. Family members said he had also been diagnosed with dementia and had recently gone into a coma.
His body will be taken to his residence before the last rites are performed later in the day, they said.
A former Union minister and two-time Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal, Roy's four-decade-long political journey saw his stints in the Congress, TMC and the BJP.
His political career began with the Youth Congress, before he joined hands with Banerjee when she broke away from the grand old party to form the Trinamool Congress in 1998.
As a founding member, he quickly emerged as one of the key organisational pillars of the fledgling party and went on to serve as its general secretary.
He was elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2006 and became the party's leader in the Upper House in 2009, turning into TMC's principal troubleshooter in Delhi. In the UPA-2 government, when the TMC was a constituent, Roy first served as Minister of State for Shipping before taking over as the railway minister in 2012.
In West Bengal's political circles, Roy earned a reputation as a backroom operator deft in organisational work. Following the TMC's historic victory in 2011 that ended 34 years of the Left Front rule, he played a significant role in consolidating the party's hold in several districts, overseeing defections from the CPI(M) and the Congress, strengthening the new regime's political base.
However, his career was not without controversy. His name had surfaced in the Saradha chit fund case and the Narada sting operation.
By 2017, relations between Roy and the TMC leadership had deteriorated. In November that year, he joined the BJP in a move that altered the state's political equations. Tasked with strengthening the BJP's organisation in West Bengal, Roy was credited by party leaders with helping engineer defections from the TMC and expanding the saffron party's base ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, in which the BJP won 18 of the state's 42 seats.
He was elected as a BJP MLA from the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections. Within months, however, he returned to the TMC, triggering legal and political wrangling. Subsequently, a court disqualified him as an MLA under the anti-defection law for switching parties after being elected on a BJP ticket.
Though he rejoined the TMC, Roy never regained the political centrality he once enjoyed. As his health declined, he gradually withdrew from active politics.
Often described as the 'Chanakya' of West Bengal politics during his prime, Roy remained a pivotal figure in the state's turbulent political landscape -- a strategist who operated as comfortably in Delhi's power corridors as in the backrooms of Kolkata's party offices.
Leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, condoled Roy's death.
In an X post, he wrote, "Deeply disheartened to learn about the sad demise of senior politician, Shri Mukul Roy. My sincere condolences to his family. Praying that his soul attains eternal peace. Om Shanti."
