Madhya Pradesh in the semi-finals with a five wicket win, will now face Bengal

Openers Yash Dubey and Rajat Patidar hit a half-century to help defending champions Madhya Pradesh enter the Ranji Trophy semi-finals with a five-wicket victory over Andhra, here on Friday. Trailing by 151 runs in the first innings, Madhya Pradesh came back on day three on Thursday and dismissed Andhra with just 93 runs in 32.3 overs in the second innings. In this way, Madhya Pradesh hit a target of 245 runs to win and had scored 58 runs without dropping a wicket on Thursday.

Then on Friday he scored 187 runs from 61 overs and won the match with a day to spare. Andhra captain Hanuma Vihari’s daring one-handed batting despite a wrist injury did not work out for the team as Madhya Pradesh struck 245 for five in 77 overs to book a place in the semi-finals. Madhya Pradesh will now face Bengal on February 8 in what will be a replay of the last four matches of the previous phase. Madhya Pradesh won that match by 174 runs at Alur, Karnataka.

Except for captain Aditya Srivastava (02), all the top batsmen from Madhya Pradesh made useful contributions on the fourth day on Friday. The wicket-keeper-batsman Himanshu Mantri was dismissed on the second ball of the day and failed to even add a run to his score for the evening. Dubey (58 runs) then shared a 62-run partnership with Shubham Sharma (40 runs) for the second wicket before being dismissed. Patidar (55 runs) added 49 runs for the fourth wicket with Saransh Jain (28 not out), leaving Madhya Pradesh on 207 for four. Jain then completed the formalities with Harsh Gawli (18 not out) to give the team the victory. Lalit Mohan and Prithvi Raj each took two wickets for Andhra while Nitish Kumar Reddy took one wicket.

Disclaimer:Prabhasakshi has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.