Sikkim’s Girl Hits A Half Century In Senior Women’s One Day League
Sikkim Women’s team is currently playing Senior Women’s One Day League 2018-19 in the Plate Division, where they will be competing with Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry, and Uttarakhand. After 6 years Sikkim Senior Women’s Cricket team is participating in the Indian Domestic League. They will be playing the 8 league matches in Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack.
The team is accompanied by 12 local players of Sikkim and 3 guest players, who have been playing professional cricket from their respective States and also have represented Indian team in past. The recruitment is done as per the norms of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), in which 3 guest players are allowed. Purnima Rau, former India Women’s Cricket team captain and also the coach of Indian Women’s team, has been appointed as the coach of team Sikkim by the BCCI.
So far Sikkim has played 2 matches, against Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh and gave a tough fight to the opponents. In the first match, Archana Das (Member of T20 World Cup Squad 2012) scored 87 not-out, scoring the highest runs for Sikkim, Priyanka Acharya and Purni Maya Gurung taking 3 wickets and 1 wicket respectively.
In the Second Match against Arunachal Pradesh, Tshering Ongmu Lepcha scored 60 runs being the highest scorer for Sikkim in the match followed by Tabita Subba, who was 34 not out. Tshering Ongmu Lepcha of Gayzing, West Sikkim is playing for Sikkim Women’s Cricket team since 2008 under different age categories and is the best wicket-keeper batsmen in Sikkim. She has always been a consistent run scorer for Sikkim. Her highest run in 2 days match is 98, scored against Odisha in 2010 playing in the senior category and 72 runs in One Day. Back in January 2013, when Sikkim reached finals of Senior Women’s Northeast One Day Tournament against Chhattisgarh, Ongmu scored 60 runs and was also the highest run-maker of the tournament.
“Playing cricket has always been my passion and I love this game. We are thankful to the state cricket association and BCCI that Cricket has returned to the state after almost 6 years and we are back on the field. I am grateful to God for putting in the position where I am today. It is an honour to represent the State in the National Level Tournament and that too in Cricket where the competition is too much. I am happy for my half-century but this is not enough and I need to work hard for the best result of the team. Lastly, I would like to thank Som Tshering Lepcha sir, who has been coaching us all these years and helped us keep in touch with Cricket and our current coach Purnima Rau madam for believing in me.” – says Tshering Ongmu Lepcha.