Mumbai reach Ranji Trophy final on the back of innings lead
Mumbai were denied the satisfaction of an outright victory in their Ranji Trophy semi-final against Madhya Pradesh but the Aditya Tare led side would be happy to make the final due to their first innings lead.
Mumbai would be playing their 45th Ranji Trophy final against Saurashtra in a quest to lift the 41st title. The final will be played in Pune on 24th February.
In a run fest in Cuttack, Mumbai had set up a massive 571 for Madhya Pradesh to chase which on the final day was never going to be easy. In the end, MP were stopped at 361/5 with Naman Ojha (113) and Harpreet Singh (105) scoring hundreds as Mumbai tried their best to bowl them out. Tare used nine bowlers in this arduous task with only himself and Shreyas Iyer not having a crack at bagging a wicket.
MP had begun the day’s play at 99/2 but the damage was already done prior to it with Tare (109) and Suryakumar Yadav (115) scoring tons past hapless Madhya Pradesh bowlers.
This is Mumbai’s first foray into the final in the past three seasons.
BRIEF SCORES: Madhya Pradesh 227 (Ojha 79, Sandhu 5-43) and 361 for 5 (Ojha 113, Harpreet 105) drew with Mumbai 371 (Iyer 90, Tare 68, Sakhure 5-137) and 426 (Suryakumar 115, Tare 109, Pandey 3-103). Mumbai through on first-innings lead
