5 players from Maharashtra are selected for the women's challenge T-20 tournament. They are Smriti Mandhana, Shivali Shinde , Maya Sonawne, Aarti Kedar and Shradha Pokharkar. This the first time that 5 girls from the state have got this opportunity to showcase their talent on the national and international stage.
Maharashtra cricket association, successfully conducted 13 IPL matches at our stadium in Gahunje and have been requested by the BCCI to host the IPL women's challenge tournament which will feature 12 international players and 32 top Indian women cricketers. This tournament will be played at Gahunje between 23rd and 28th of May.
Maharashtra Senior Women's t20 campaign for the season 2021/2022 commenced on 18th April'2022 at Pondicherry..Smriti Mandhana was available to play after a gap of 4 years and led the team to the finals..Her presence was a huge inspiration for the Senior Women's team going into the tournament.. After losing the first game to Andhra Pradesh the Maharashtra team started an unbeaten journey winning games against Kerala,Meghalaya,Hyderabad and Rajasthan to top the group and qualify for the knockouts.. Top performers in the league phase were Tejal Hasabnis who scored 54,52 not out and 39 not out.. Aarti Kedar picked 11 wickets in the league stage and eventually became the highest wicket taker in the tournament with 13 wickets to her name.. Maya Sonawane bowled beautifully and finished the league stage with 8 wickets.. Opening bowlers Priyanka Garkhede and Shraddha Pokharkar bowled quite economically with the new ball which helped us to restrict the opposition to smaller totals.. Knockouts were played in Surat..We beat Himachal Pradesh in the QF..Devika Vaidya picked 3 wickets for 18 runs in 4 overs..Chasing 100 to win Maharashtra won the game by 9 wickets with Smriti and Shivali scored 46 not out and 42 respectively. In the semi finals against Baroda bowling first,Priyanka Garkhede:3/0/7/1,Aarti Kedar:3/0/14/1 and Utkarsha Pawar :4/0/21/3 were the pick of the bowlers while restricting Baroda to 121 in 20 overs.While chasing the total Shivali Shinde and Tejal Hasabnis continued their good form and scored 44 & 33 respectively and Devika Vaidya and Mukta Magre finished with 21 not out and 10 not out respectively.. In the finals after winning the toss against Railways,batting first Maharashtra scored 160 with Smriti scoring 84 of 56 balls and Shivali 30 to give Maharashtra an opening stand of 74 runs of 9 overs.. Railways chased the total in 18.1 overs..
This year's Ranji Trophy season which resumed after two years saw Maharashtra winning their first match
against Assam by an innings securing the maximum 7 points from the game.
Debutant Pavan Shah
scored 219 and Satyajeet Bachhav got 11 wickets in the match. They were the architects of Maharashtra's
victory.
Three of our players were bought by the franchisees for the IPL . with Rahul Tripathi going for Rs8.5 crores. He was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad whereas Rajvardhan Hangargekar and Vicky Ostwal , fresh from their being the architects of the India U-19 team's victory in the World cup , were bought by Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals respectively.
For the very first time we have also been allotted 15 matches in this year's IPL and our stadium at Gahunje will host all the IPL teams who will play 3 games on our ground.
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Captain of the Senior Team is in the limelight for scoring 4 Centuries in the 5 matches played during the Vijay Hazare Trophy.