Eight-time holders of the Ranji Trophy, Karnataka were humbled within two days by Tamil Nadu, who progressed to the semi-final with a seven-wicket win at Visakhapatnam on Friday.
Barring KL Rahul, none of the other batsmen could muster up a half-decent innings after Sreenath Aravind had given Karnataka a chance, bowling Tamil Nadu out for 152. Dinesh Karthik capped off his 100th Ranji Trophy match with a breezy cameo, which took his team over the line chasing 87.
At Raipur, Hyderabad look well set to take a lead against Mumbai through fifties from Tanmay Agawal and skipper S Badrinath. Chama Millind and Mohammed Siraj took nine wickets between them to dismiss Mumbai for 294. Hyderabad ended the day at 166/3.
Jharkhand took control of their quarter-final match against Haryana. Shahbaz Nadeem picked up seven before Virat Singh and Ishank Jaggi took their side to 228/3, just 30 short of Haryana’s total. Jasprit Bumrah was on target as Odisha batsmen put up a poor display with the bat, undoing the hard work put in by their bowlers.
Tamil Nadu emerge victors in wicket-fest
Quite astoundingly, 19 wickets fell on day two at Raipur as the green top left the batsmen little scope of getting their eye in. Sreenath Aravind was brilliant with the ball and should have been rewarded with more wickets than the three he scalped.
Yet again, Vinay Kumar’s side were poor with the bat, even though they did much better than the paltry 88 they scored in the first innings. It was one man – KL Rahul’s gutsy 77 – that gave the Karnataka side a target to bowl at. There were hiccups with Tamil Nadu losing a few wickets early on in their chase of 87 but skipper Karthik’s boundary-filled stay at the crease earned his side a deserved win.
Mumbai have their task cut out
Chama Milind picked up five and Siraj four as Hyderabad dismissed the Mumbai lower-order cheaply. The defending champions had fought back in the game after losing early wickets through Aditya Tare’s 73 and Siddhesh Lad’s gritty hundred on day one.
Hyderabad were 127 runs adrift of Mumbai at the close of play with Agrawal and Badrinath getting half centuries. Abhishek Nayar picked up all the three Hyderabad wickets to fall in day.
Brief scores:
Karnataka 88 (Manish Pandey 28; Aswin Crist 6/31, T Natarajan 3/18) & 150 (KL Rahul 77; K Vignesh 4/53, T Natarajan 3/40) lose to Tamil Nadu 152 (Vijay Shankar 34, Dinesh Karthik 31; Sreenath Aravind 3/16) & 87/3 (Dinesh Karthik 41 not out; Abhimanyu Mithun 1/7) by 7 wickets
Haryana 258 (Rajat Paliwal 42, Chaitanya Bishnoi 41; Shahbaz Nadeem 7/79) lead Jharkhand 228/3 (Virat Singh 81 not out, Ishank Jaggi 77 not out; Harshal Patel 1/24) by 30 runs
Mumbai 294 (Siddhesh Lad 110, Aditya Tare 73; Chama Milind 5/80, Mohammed Siraj 4/64) lead Hyderabad 167/3 (Tanmay Agarwal 63 not out, S Badrinath 56; Abhishek Nayar 3/26) by 127 runs
Gujarat 263 (Chirag Gandhi 81, Rush Kalaria 73; Basant Mohanty 5/68, Deepak Behera 3/50) lead Odisha 184/8 (Suryakant Pradhan 47, Sandeep Patnaik 43; Jasprit Bumrah 4/33) by 79 runs
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