*J&K’s 1st woman centurion deserves a better deal
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, May 19: Talented batting all-round of Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association (JKCA), Chitra Singh Jamwal, who has the honour of being the first woman cricketer from J&K to score a century at the National scene in the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy, despite reigning the cricketing kingdom and having the cricketing brilliance with 5 magnificent centuries at her back and two in the last season itself, has yet to get what she actually deserved as a cricketer because she has failed to get the nod of National Selectors’ to be part of the BCCI’s prestigious U-23 Women’s High Performance Camp, being organized by the National Cricket Academy (NCA).
Thus, one can sum up it by saying that with no fault from her side, Chitra’s cricketing brilliance has failed to yield healthy results. J&K cricket fraternity is at a loss to understand why this cricketing star of J&K was ignored by the National Selectors’ and not considered for the Seniors and U-23 Women’s High Performance Camp, being organized by NCA.
Despite scoring around 800 runs in all the formats last season with a healthy average, besides taking 25 wickets, it was shell-shocking for the cricket community to see her name missing from the list of the players selected for NCA’s high performance camp.
Chitra, last season, has produced stellar performances in Senior Women’s One-Day and T20 Trophies, besides U-23 Women’s T20 Tournament. She has scored 327 runs with two splendid centuries and two big fifties in Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy, 298 runs in Women’s U-23 One-Day Trophy and 148 runs in Senior Women’s T20 Trophy, besides taking 8, 9 and 5 wickets in these tournaments respectively. She also took 2 wickets for North Zone in the Inter-Zonal One-Day Tournament, which forced her to miss the U-23 Women’s One-Day Trophy last season.
After emerging top run-getter for J&K with 148 runs and 9 wickets in the Senior Women’s T20 Tournament last season, Chitra emerged top run scorer in the country in the league phase of the prestigious Women’s U-23 T20 Trophy and again top scorer in the country in league phase of the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy.
Gutsy Chitra scored 292 runs in the seven innings of the 7 matches she played in U-23 T20 tournament with a healthy average of 97.33 and an impressive strike rate (as far as women’s cricket is concerned) of 91.25. Ishwari Savarkar of Maharashtra with 266 runs was at number-2 spot in this list.
Promising Chitra scored three half-centuries with unbeaten 68* as her top score, apart from unconquered 48*, 45 and 22* runs in the other three innings’. Though, Chitra scored three and missed two fifties, Aradhana D Bisht scored 2 fifties in the league phase of this tournament. Chitra smashed 36 fours and 2 sixes in the tournament, just behind Savarkar’s 48 boundaries, besides taking 7 wickets in U-23 tournament.
In Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy, Chitra amassed 327 runs with an average of 81.73, smashing 2 centuries and 2 fifties, including a hundred against Rajasthan, having the most formidable bowling attacks in the country.
Apart from all this, Chitra has the distinction of scoring 253 runs with a fabulous century and two half-centuries in the Women’s U-19 2-day matches, organized by the BCCI, way back in 2019. Yastika Bhatia (256 runs) was the only batter to score more runs than Chitra in this prestigious tournament. However, Chitra had scored these runs with an average of 84.33, while Yastika had an average of 64.00 in this tournament.
Chitra also scored two back to back centuries and a fifty in the four innings of the first of its kind JKCA Women’s League held recently.
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