Ranji Trophy Round-up: Delhi, Mumbai reach quarters, Tamil Nadu exit

Gautam Gambhir (PTI)

The group stage of the ongoing Ranji Trophy season ended on Tuesday, with most of the bigwigs barring Tamil Nadu making to the last-eight state of India's premier first-class tournament.

Group A: Delhi set up quarterfinal with Madhya Pradesh

Delhi entered the knockout stage as the second best team from Group A after their last league match against Hyderabad ended in a draw. Delhi picked up three points from the game by virtue of taking the first innings lead at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.

Delhi will take on Madhya Pradesh in the quarterfinals, while Group A topper Karnataka will lock horns with Group C runners-up Mumbai in their last-eight clash. Karnataka thrashed Railways by 209 runs after offspinner K Gowtham returning figures of 7 for 72.

Delhi drew the match against the hosts after being made to bowl over 150 overs in the second innings. Forced to follow on after conceding a lead of 210, Hyderabad's batsmen came good in the second innings, with Akshath Reddy (107), Rohit Rayudu (103) and B Sandeep (93) helping them to 442 for eight at stumps.

Delhi used nine bowlers through the second innings, with the left-arm spinner Vikas Mishra picking up his fifth five-wicket haul. He took four wickets on the final day, including
those of the set batsmen Rayudu and Sandeep. Hyderabad finished fourth in the group with 16 points, after having their first two matches washed out.

Delhi finished second with 27 points. In another Group A game in Pune, Maharashtra won by seven wickets after overhauling Assam's victory target of 216/3 in 47.4 overs.

Group B: Gujarat, Kerala in quarters

Defending champions Gujarat thrashed Jharkhand by 10 wickets after left-arm spinner Hardik Patel starred with the ball with an impressive four-wicket haul to qualify for the quarterfinals as Group B toppers.

Gujarat needed just 10 balls to chase down the fourth- innings target of 15 after Jharkhand imploded on the fourth and final morning with Hardik triggering the home side batting collapse. The 10-wicket bonus-point win ensured a top-of-the-table finish for Gujarat with 34 points from six matches.

Having been asked to follow-on on the third day, Jharkhand were always facing an uphill battle. They did not begin the fourth morning too well, losing two wickets in the first three overs. Virat Singh and Ishan Kishan made some resistance with a 48-run partnership for the fifth wicket, but Jharkhand crumbled once Singh was dismissed for 52, losing six wickets for 26 runs to be bowled out for 183.

Patel had remarkable figures of 4 for 9 in six overs. Gujarat openers collected all their runs in fours to breeze to the target, reaching to 16 for no loss in 1.4 overs. In Rohtak, Kerala picked up an innings-and-eight-run win against Haryana to join Gujarat in the quarterfinals from Group B.

Kerala were in the driver's seat after taking a 181-run first innings lead and having reduced to Haryana to 83 for 5 by the third evening. They needed just five wickets for a win on the fourth and final day and they did that in style with seamer M D Nidheesh grabbing three wickets to earn Kerala a bonus-point win.

Kerala finished second on the Group B table with 31 points, while Haryana's season ended with their fourth loss in six matches. This was the first time Kerala entered the quarterfinals since the introduction of the tier system in the Ranji Trophy format.

In Jaipur, the Group B match between Saurashtra and Rajasthan ended in a draw. Saurashtra ended third in the group with 26 points while Rajasthan finished last with six points.

Group C: Mumbai finish second, reach quarters

Tamil Nadu ended their campaign in this year's Ranji Trophy tournament by losing their final Group C match to Baroda by 102 runs.

Requiring 233 for a win, the visiting team was all out for 130 in 65.5 overs on the final day on Tuesday.

Baba Aparajith was the only one to offer resistance, scoring 60.

For Baroda, Lukman Meriwala and all-rounder Swapnil K Singh took four wickets each.

Tamil Nadu thus finished the Ranji season with 11 points from six games, having failed to even win a match.

It was an abject surrender by the Tamil Nadu batsmen on the final day as none showed the inclination to fight.

Meriwala ripped the Tamil Nadu top-order apart, removing captain Abhinav Mukund, N Jagadeesan and B Indrajith to leave them tottering at 16 for 3.

It was downhill for TN as wickets kept falling at regular intervals with only Aparajith and V Yomahesh (23) hanging on for a significant period.

Madhya Pradesh, which outclassed Odisha in another game at Indore by seven wickets, qualified for the quarterfinals along with Mumbai.

MP's win knocked out Andhra Pradesh, which finished with 19 points.

Group D: Bengal join Vidarbha in last eight

Anustup Majumdar struck his second century in the match as Bengal drew their Ranji Trophy Group D match against Goa to advance to the quarterfinals. Resuming at 108/3, Bengal, who had a first-innings lead of 69 runs, lost Abhimanyu Easwaran (21) and Shreevats Goswami (20) cheaply.

But Majumdar held fort and followed up his first innings century with an unbeaten 108 (183 balls; 11x4), while Writtick Chatterjee also matched his partner with a 102 not out as Bengal declared their second innings for 334 for five.

Chasing an impossible 404 target on the final day, Goa were 86 for two in their second essay at close. With the drawn result, Bengal progressed to the quarterfinals on the basis of their first innings lead with 23 points from six matches.