Ranji Trophy: Sai Kishore successful again, Tamil Nadu beats Saurashtra to enter semi-finals. cricket news

Tamil Nadu captain R Sai Kishore grabbed the headlines with the ball this time as his four wickets helped his team defeat Saurashtra by an innings and 33 runs on the third day of the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals in Coimbatore on Sunday. As a result, TN became the first team this season to enter the semi-finals, which will be played on March 2. Moving past the overnight score of 300 for 6 in their first innings, TN managed to add only 38 more to their total. Ajit Ram remained unbeaten after scoring 23 runs. However, thanks to some commendable innings from Sai Kishore (60), Baba Inderjit (80) and Bupathi Kumar (65), TN managed to take a lead of 155 runs as against Saurashtra’s 183 runs.

It was a collective effort from the visiting bowling unit, with everyone taking wickets except Prerak Mankad, who was the most economical (1.00). Chirag Jani claimed three.

Saurashtra started their second innings nervously and lost three wickets for 48 runs, with Sandeep Warrier dismissing two of their top-order batsmen – Harwick Desai (4) and Sheldon Jackson (2) cheaply.

The pair of Cheteshwar Pujara (46) and Arpit Vasavada (20) tried to bring Saurashtra’s innings back on track to some extent by making a partnership of 55 runs for the fourth wicket.

However, Mohammed Ali managed to get rid of Vasavada as the score read 103 for 4 before the floodgates opened.

All the Saurashtra batsmen were out in single digit figures. Pujara, their highest scorer in this innings and this season, was the eighth wicket to fall for 111 runs, while Sai Kishore, the season’s leading wicket-taker in the competition, earned the prized wicket.

Ultimately, Saurashtra was all out for 122 runs, giving the hosts a place in the semi-finals.

Apart from Sai Kishore, who has an economy of 1.01, Warrier also provided excellent support to the TN bowling unit by taking three wickets.

Thakur, Sarwate give Vidarbha command over Karnataka

Yash Thakur and Aditya Sarwate shone as Vidarbha came into a strong position against Karnataka after gaining a lead of 224 runs on the third day of the Ranji Trophy quarter-final match here on Sunday.

Left-arm spinner Sarwate (3/50) and fast bowler Thakur (3/48) took six wickets apiece as Karnataka were bowled out for 286 in the first innings, having started the night at 98 for two. Did.

This helped the hosts take a huge innings lead of 174 runs and Vidarbha ended the third day at 50 without loss in their second innings, with openers and first innings centurions Atharva Tayde (21) and Dhruv Shore (29) was present at the crease.

Karnataka faced the difficult task of bridging the gap with Vidarbha.

Their biggest hope for this was the presence of in-form experienced Manish Pandey and middle and lower order batsmen like Hardik Raj, Sharath Srinivas and Vaisakh Vijayakumar.

But Pandey, who had scored a century in the last match against Chandigarh, was out on Thakur’s ball after scoring 15 runs in the first session itself.

But vice-captain Nikin Jose (82, 212b, 11×4) and Hardik together scored 50 runs for the fourth wicket, due to which Karnataka’s innings seemed to be back on track.

However, the Thakur-Karun Nair duo proved disastrous for Hardik as Karnataka lost their fifth wicket at 198.

In the last match, Karnataka’s other centurion Jose and Srinivas had another useful partnership of 53 runs, taking them past 250.

But Sarwate got the lead from Srinivas which fell into the big gloves of Akshay Wadkar.

At 251 for six, Karnataka had no real chance of surpassing Vidarbha’s first innings total of 460 and Jos’s dismissal at a team score of 286 was the end of their hopes.

Karnataka lost two more wickets on that score as veteran fast bowler Umesh Yadav uprooted the stumps of Vaisakh and Vasuki Kaushik, ending the visitors’ innings.