Indore: Jammu & Kashmir scripted history by reaching their maiden Ranji Trophy semifinal after beating 2021–22 winners Madhya Pradesh by 56 runs in the quarterfinal here at the Holkar Stadium on Monday.
J&K entered their first semifinal 67 years after they first featured in the Ranji Trophy and six years after they last made the knockouts.
Auqib Nabi’s outstanding match figures of 12 for 110 secured a historic win for J&K. Madhya Pradesh started Day 4 on 87/5, needing 204 runs to win, but lost Venkatesh Iyer early. Saransh Jain kept their hopes alive with a fighting 64, but Nabi had the final say, bowling one that came back in to beat the former’s defence. At 211 for 9, the last-wicket pair of Aryan Pandey and Kuldeep Sen kept J&K at bay by adding 23 before Yudhvir Singh clean bowled Pandey to seal victory.
Earlier, J&K stormed back into the game after being bowled out for 194 thanks largely to Nabi’s 7-40, pocketing a slender 42-run lead. Then MP fought back to leave J&K reeling at 73 for 5 in the second innings, before their lower order led a jailbreak courtesy of Abid Mushtaq (41) and Vanshraj Sharma (54).
Even so, at 183 for 9, MP were looking at a sub-250 target but ended up conceding a 65-run stand for the tenth wicket between Sunil Kumar and Yudhvir that ended up giving J&K the cushion that eventually helped pull off victory.
Brief scores: Jammu and Kashmir 194 (Khajuria 60, Sen 5-66, Kartikeya 3-26) and 248 (Vanshraj 54*, Mushtaq 41, Sen 4-65) beat Madhya Pradesh 152 (Dubey 58, Nabi 7-40, Sunil 3-47) and 234 (Saransh 64, Nabi 5-70, Mushtaq 3-49) by 56 runs
(IANS)
