Vijay Hazare Trophy: Bengal and Karnataka book semi-final berths

Mohammed Shami

Bengal won the second quarter-finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy played against Tamil Nadu at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, by 77 runs. Chasing a below-par target of 168, Tamil Nadu were bowled out for 90 runs.

On a pitch that had some assistance for the bowlers, batting first, Bengal were restricted to 167 runs, courtesy of an impressive performance by the bowlers from Tamil Nadu. Manoj Tiwary (25 off 33) and Laxmi Ratan Shukla (30 off 50) were unable to convert their start into anything substantial. Just when Bengal were looking like they could be bowled out under 125, their tail-enders Saurasish Lahiri (32 off 36) and Ashok Dinda ( 21 off 19) chipped in with a useful contributions to help the home team set a target of 168.

Yo Mahesh picked up 4 top order wickets, while Ravichandran Ashwin and Rahil Shah cleaned up the lower order with 2 wickets each.

With the kind of batting attack at Tamil Nadu’s disposal, it looked like an uphill task for Bengal to even make a match out of it. But what transpired was an outstanding exhibition of fast bowling as the trio of Mohammed Shami, Ashok Dinda and Veer Pratap Sigh, all bowling at a decent pace, ran through a line-up that had in its ranks the likes of Subramaniam Badrinath (0), Murali Vijay (24), Dinesh Karthik (5) and Baba Aparajith (12).

Murali Vijay (24 off 85) was the only one to offer some resistance; however, with wickets falling at regular intervals at the other end, Vijay had to come out of his shell and, as expected, perished in attempting to take the game to the opposition.

Shami’s pace proved to be too much for the visitors in the end as he picked up 4 wickets, which included the match turning ones of Aparajith and Badrinath. Dinda, who ended up with 3 wickets in the day, put any hopes of a TN win to rest when he picked up Karthik.

In the other quarter-finals of the day, Karnataka, powered by spectacular centuries from Robin Uthappa (132 off 135) and Karun Nair (120 off 121), after being reduced to 31 for 4 by Gujarat, registered their spot in the semi-finals. Chasing 302 to win, Gujarat were bowled out for 274 despite a counter-attacking 93 off 78 from Akshar Patel. Captain Vinay Kumar led the way by picking up 5 wickets.