Women U-19 World Cup: India beat NZ by 8 wickets to enter final
Potchefstroom (South Africa), Jan 27: Opener Shweta Sherawat smashed an unbeaten fifty after Parshavi Chopra's triple strike as India notched up a comprehensive eight-wicket win over New Zealand to storm into the final of the inaugural Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup here on Friday.
India restricted New Zealand to 107 for nine with Parshavi (3/20) leading a disciplined bowling effort after skipper Shafali Verma won the toss and elected to bowl in the first semifinals.
The 16-year-old leg-spinner broke the backbone of the Kiwi batting line-up with three successive wickets to leave them at 74 for 5 in 13th over.
Titas Sadhu, Mannat Kashyap, Shafali and Archana Devi also scalped one wicket each.
For NZ, Georgia Plimmer (35), Isabella Gaze (26) and Izzy Sharp (13) and Kayley Knight (12) reached double figures as they struggled to score runs at the Senwes Park.
Chasing 108, the women in blue romped home comfortably after Sehrawat produced a scintillating 45-ball unconquered knock which was studded with 10 hits to the fence.
Following the early exit of Shafali (10), who has not performed as per expectations in the tournament, Sehrawat and Soumya Tiwari (22) added 62 runs to take them to the threshold of victory.
Sehrawat and Gongadi Trisha (5) then completed the job with the former bringing up the winning runs with a four off Browning as India scored 110 for 2 in 14.2 overs.
Parshavi was adjudged the Player of the Match for her three-wicket haul.
India will face the winner of the other semifinal between England and Australia.
Brief Scores:
New Zealand Women: 107 for 9 in 20 overs (Georgia Plimmer 35; Parshavi Chopra 3/20).
India Women: 110 for 2 in 14.2 overs (Shweta Sherawat 61; Anna Browning 2/18).
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Assam Cong. leader Reetam Singh arrested for third time in a month
Guwahati: Assam Congress spokesperson Reetam Singh has been arrested for the third time in one month by the state police. Singh, known for his strong criticism of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on social media, reported The Wire.
It’s worth noting that Sarma is also the state’s Home Minister and has direct control over the police.
Singh who is also an Advocate was first arrested on March 15 by the Lakhimpur police after the wife of BJP MLA Manab Deka who is a close aide to CM Sarma filed a complaint. She claimed Singh had defamed her husband and her father in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Her father belongs to a Scheduled Caste, so the police charged Singh under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, along with defamation and IT Act charges.
The Gauhati High Court later granted Singh bail on March 28. According to the report, Congress MP and general secretary media in-charge Jairam Ramesh had stated that the Gauhati high court had found Singh’s arrest “riddled with procedural errors, evidencing the haste and illegality of the regime’s efforts to throttle his voice. Reetam was targeted by the State of Assam for his social media posts but now stands released from custody.”
Ramesh also in his statement asserted that no matter what the BJP government throws at the Congress workers and leaders, the party will continue to fight for the common public.
However, on April 12, Singh was arrested again this time by the Morigaon police based on another complaint under the same SC/ST law. The complaint came from a local BJP leader named Dhonti Sharma. Qouting a Press Trust of India report, The Wire reported that the police didn’t share details at first, saying the matter was still being investigated.
When Singh was brought to court on April 13, he told reporters that he was being targeted just for speaking about Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. After the court in Morigaon granted him bail, a different police team from Jagiroad arrested him once again.
A video of Singh’s third arrest has gone viral. It shows his father trying to talk to him through the police van, asking why he had been arrested again. When police refused, his father lay down in front of the van to stop it from leaving. Officers then removed him and asked him to visit the Jagiroad police station, about 27 km away, to get details.
Assam Congress President Bhupen Kumar Borah condemned the arrest and accused the chief minister of trying to suppress free speech. He said Singh was being treated like a dangerous criminal even though all he did was criticize BJP leaders on social media. Borah also said, denying Singh’s parents a chance to see him was a violation of human rights.
This is not the first time Assam police has been in the news recently. They also arrested journalist Dilwar Hussain Mozumder while he was covering a protest at a co-operative bank linked to corruption. Chief Minister Sarma is a director of the same bank. Mozumder too was charged under the SC/ST Act and later granted bail. A few days after his release, his brother was arrested in a separate land-grabbing case.
