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

Openers Yash Dubey and Rajat Patidar struck half-centuries to help defending champions Madhya Pradesh enter the Ranji Trophy semi-finals with a five-wicket win over Andhra, here on Friday. Madhya Pradesh, trailing by 151 runs on the first innings, made a comeback on the third day on Thursday and bowled out Andhra for just 93 runs in 32.3 overs in the second innings. In this way, Madhya Pradesh got a target of 245 runs to win and had scored 58 runs without losing a wicket on Thursday.

Then on Friday, he scored 187 runs in 61 overs and won the match with a day to spare. Andhra skipper Hanuma Vihari’s daring one-handed batting despite a wrist injury did not work for the team as Madhya Pradesh scored 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 repeat of the last four match of the previous phase. Madhya Pradesh won that match by 174 runs in Alur, Karnataka.

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