On the last day of the Ranji Trophy semi-final, Mumbai made it to their 45th Ranji Trophy Final as Madhya Pradesh failed to reach the target of 571 set by Mumbai. Mumbai will be looking to win against Saurashtra in the finals that are scheduled to be held from February 24-28, 2016 at Pune.
The last time that Mumbai made it to the finals was in 2012/13, which is also the last time that Saurashtra had made it to the final of the Ranji Trophy. Mumbai will be looking to claim their 41st Ranji title while Saurashtra will be looking to win their second title (their previous one was during the 1936/37 season when they were known as Nawanagar).
MP, who ended Day 4 on 99/2 with Aditya Shrivastava and Naman Ojha at the crease, lost their young opener after he added on just 15 runs to his overnight total to finish with a score of 68.
Ojha, on the other hand, continued his fine form from the first innings and went on to score his first hundred of the 2015/16 Ranji season. In his knock of 113, Ojha hit 13 fours and one six. The wicketkeeper-batsman was ably supported by Harpreet Singh, who also scored a century and was involved in a 159-run partnership with Ojha.
Harpreet Singh had picked up three wickets for MP in the second innings and he showed his prowess with the bat as he made 105, scoring 11 fours and one six.
Ankit Bane and Jagdeep Baweja held the fort for MP until the end of the final day and made sure that MP did not have a late collapse, MP finishing their maiden semi-final entrance on 361/5 which was 210 runs behind the target.
Shardul Thakur, Badre Alam, Suryakumar Yadav and Bhavin Thakkar took one wicket each for Mumbai.
Brief Scores: Mumbai 371 & 426 drew with MP 227 & 361/5, 109 overs (Ojha 113, Harpreet Singh 105, Shrivastava 68; Thakkar 1/3, Suryakumar Yadav 1/20).
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