What’s the story?
Defending champions Mumbai defeated Tamil Nadu by 6 wickets to qualify for the finals of the Ranji Trophy. The South Indian side had declared yesterday after scoring 356 in the 2nd innings and set a target of 251 for Mumbai to achieve, who did so with ease, in 62 overs at 4.03 runs per over.
In case you didn’t know...
Mumbai will be up against Gujarat in the finals of the tournament. Gujarat completed an incredible turnaround and defeated Jharkhand by 123 runs to reach the finals of the tournament after a gap of 67 years. The last time they reached the finals was way back in 1950 where they lost to Holkar.
Meanwhile, Mumbai have won 41 titles, with their most recent victory being last year where they defeated Saurashtra by an innings and 21 runs.
The heart of the matter
After beginning the day with 5 runs on the board in 5 overs, the Mumbai batsmen, with 17-year-old Prithvi Shaw at the helm of the batting line-up led the counter-attack and tackled the Tamil Nadu bowlers with relative ease to achieve the victory.
Shaw, who made his first-class debut smashed his way to a magnificent knock of 120 runs off 175 deliveries with 13 fours and one huge six to his name. Praful Waghela, Shreyas Iyer, and Suryakumar Yadav chipped in with useful contributions of 36,40, and 34 respectively. The Tamil Nadu bowlers did not have much to show for as Aushik Srinivas picked up two wickets, while Baba Aparajith and Vijay Shankar picked up one wicket each.
What’s next?
The finals of the prestigious tournament will take place between January 10th and 14th at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore. The limited-overs competition- Vijay Hazare Trophy and the newly-proposed inter-zonal T20 tournament for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy will be played after the conclusion of the Ranji Trophy.
Sportskeeda’s take
Tamil Nadu should have extended their 2nd innings lead and given Mumbai a slightly bigger target to achieve. That would have put the pressure on the Mumbai batsmen, and we might have seen a closer encounter. However, having said this, Mumbai remain absolutely relentless when it comes to the knockout stages of the Ranji Trophy and it will be extremely interesting to see how Gujarat fare against them in the final.
Brief Scores: Tamil Nadu 305 & 356/6d lost to Mumbai 411 & 251/4 by 6 wickets
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