Vijay ton leads TN to quarter-finals; UP avoid relegation

Led by M Vijay's unbeaten 104, Tamil Nadu beat Baroda by seven wickets at the Moti Bagh stadium in Vadodara to seal a quarter-final spot.

Tamil Nadu resumed their chase of 207 from 51 for 1 on the fourth day, but lost B Aparajith for 10 in the seventh over of the day, with Sagar Mangalorkar providing the breakthrough. Vijay, who resumed from an overnight score of 26, carried on and recorded his 16th first-class century. He added 66 for the third wicket with Dinesh Karthik, and an unbroken 69 with Vijay Shankar, as Tamil Nadu aced their chase of 207. Mangalorkar picked up the two wickets to fall on the final day, capping off a match haul of nine wickets.

Eklavya Dwivedi slammed an unbeaten 102 off 73 deliveries to steer Uttar Pradesh to a seven-wicket win against Railways, thus helping them avoid relegation. Uttar Pradesh were placed at the bottom of Group A before the game but finished in seventh place.

Chasing 243, UP began the fourth day at 25 for 0 but suffered an early setback when opener Shivam Chaudhary was bowled by seamer Anureet Singh in the first over. Tanmay Srivastava, however, kicked on to bring up his 20th first-class fifty and added 81 for the third wicket with Himanshu Asnora.

After Asnora (43) and Srivastava (53) fell within three overs, Dwivedi charged to his third first-class ton, while No.4 Umang Sharma chipped in with 35 off 70 balls. Dwivedi scored 15 fours and three sixes during his knock as UP completed the chase in 74.4 overs. Piyush Chawla was named Man of the Match for his match haul of six wickets and a knock of 73 in the first innings.

Wriddhiman Saha's doughty 92 helped Bengal avoid a loss and thwarted Madhya Pradesh's chances of qualifying for the quarterfinals as the game between the two sides ended in a draw. An outright win would have taken Madhya Pradesh to 22 points and would have pipped them over Mumbai in the race for the third qualifying spot from Group A.

Following on with a deficit of 184 runs on the fourth day, Bengal lost the overnight pair of Sudeep Chatterjee and Arindam Das in successive overs. Quick strikes from medium-pacer Puneet Datey, who dismissed Manoj Tiwary and Laxmi Shukla, soon had them struggling at 157 for 5, from where Bengal slid to 212 for 7. Saha and Saurasish Lahiri, however, stitched together a valuable 90-run partnership for the eighth wicket, batting out 53.5 overs in the process. Saha was dismissed in the last over of the day for 92 off 232 deliveries with 11 fours, while Lahiri was unbeaten on 48 off 187 balls with nine fours.