Padikkal, Desai send Karnataka and Saurashtra into VHT semis

Devdutt Padikkal continued his golden run, recording an unbeaten 81, while Karun Nair scored 74 not out as defending champions Karnataka defeated Mumbai by 55 runs (VJD method).

After Karnataka restricted Mumbai to 254 for 8, the two stitched an unbroken 144-run stand for the second wicket. When the players went off due to bad light, Karnataka needed to be 132 for 1 after 33 overs on the VJD par score. They were 187 for 1 and claimed an easy win.

It was a professional show from Karnataka against a Mumbai side missing several star players. There was no Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube or Shreyas Iyer. Sarfaraz Khan, Mumbai's leading run-scorer of the tournament, was ruled out after a blow in the nets on the eve of the game too.

It was a chilly, overcast morning and Vidwath Kaverappa and Abhilash Shetty made the new ball talk with their seam movement after Mayank Agarwal won the toss. Angkrish Raghuvanshi had an early life, with Nair spilling one at first slip while Ishan Mulchandani struck a couple of fours before falling to a needless pull off Vidyadhar Patil, which ballooned straight up. Padikkal tracked back from the slips to complete the catch.

Musheer Khan, the No.3, then charged at Patil fifth ball, mowing him across the line, but two balls later, the bowler won the battle with his extra bounce that Musheer edged to slip. Raghuvanshi nailed Vijaykumar Vyshak for a six over deep midwicket and a four two balls later but the fast bowler struck back with a jaffa, landing a ball around off stump and threatening to seam the delivery back in, but it straightened after pitching. Raghuvanshi played down the wrong line and had his stumps shattered.

Things went from bad to worse when Padikkal took his third catch to send back Hardik Tamore as Mumbai slipped to 60 for 4 in the 18th over. Shams Mulani and the captain Siddhesh Lad added 76 runs for the fifth wicket to resurrect Mumbai, but three wickets fell in quick succession to leave Mumbai 191 for 7.

Mulani helped Mumbai finish with a score of 250 plus. He got a thick outside edge off Vyshak with the ball flying between the keeper and first slip, but largely looked solid. He reached his fifty with a couple of runs off Shreyas Gopal before cutting loose and finished on 86. He found strong support from Sairaj Patil. Patil hammered five fours and a six in his unbeaten 25-ball 32 and Mumbai scored 59 in the last five overs.

It was overcast and muggy at the start of Karnataka's chase and the Mumbai bowlers were on point. Mohit Avasthi had Agarwal caught at first slip and Mumbai should have had Padikkal twice, but the fielders couldn't latch on. He was on 24 when a top-edge from Patil went to Onkar Tarmale at deep fine leg, but the fielder dropped the catch. Padikkal then edged Avasthi soon after to Raghuvanshi at first slip, who dropped a regulation chance.

There were no spectators allowed at the CoE, but a handful of fans lined up on the side of the boundary wall of Ground 1 made quite the noise. From 'bye, bye Mumbai' to 'Jai Jai, Karnataka' and 'who are we?... Karnataka!', they revved up the players as Padikkal and Nair dominated. Padikkal brought up his fifty off 62 balls and took his run tally for the tournament past 700. Nair reached his half-century off 44 balls. The players went off for bad light around 4.20pm local time, and a drizzle later ended the game.

The other quarter-final in ground B was a tighter affair, and Saurashtra eventually prevailed, thanks to Harvik Desai's unbeaten 100 and Prerak Mankad's all-round effort.

Sent in, UP rode on half-centuries from Sameer Rizvi (88*) and Abhishek Goswami (88) to rack up 310 for 8. Saurashtra lost opener Vishvaraj Jadeja early, but Desai and Mankad added a run-a-ball 133-run stand to take them forward.

Mankad and Sammar Gajjar fell quickly, but with rain in the air, Saurashtra upped the ante. Chirag Jani and Desai added an unbroken 76-run stand in 62 balls for the fourth wicket. By the time the players went off for rain, Saurashtra had reached 238 for 3 and were 17 ahead of the VJD par score.

Chasing 311 was always going to be tricky, but Desai calculated the chase brilliantly. With Mankad taking the bowlers on, Desai rotated the strike while also getting the odd boundary in. Desai took 59 balls to reach his fifty while Mankad got there in 46. Mankad's innings was finally ended by a clever piece of bowling from left-arm spinner Prashant Veer, who shortened his length on seeing the batter come down the track and had him stumped.

Samar Jaggar was out slogging and at that point, Saurashtra's required rate had climbed to 7.45. But Jani immediately pressed on the gas and Desai, too, found the boundaries more consistently. Desai reached his century off 116 balls, slapping Karan Chaudhary through midwicket and the players immediately went off for the drizzle, which had intensified by then. Saurashtra were in front on VJD at that point and while the drizzle abated, the light never improved for the players to come back.

Earlier, Goswami looked in sublime touch despite wickets falling around him. He reached his fifty with a stylish lofted cover drive before he lifted Ankur Panwar over mid-on and hit the cleanest of straight drives against Mankad. Rinku Singh, the UP captain, fell for just 13, caught behind off Mankad but Rizvi gave the UP innings the impetus.

Goswami missed out on a century by 12 runs, being stumped after being beaten in flight by Parswaraj Rana. But Rizvi was authoritative. He began with a crunching on the up cover drive against Mankad and then went down the ground against Dharmendrasinh Jadeja for six.

Rizvi struck ten fours and two sixes in his 77-ball knock, while Veer (30) and Zeeshan Ansari (20) also played a role as UP notched up 101 runs in the last ten overs. For Saurashtra, Chetan Sakariya picked up 3 for 54 while Panwar and Mankad returned two wickets each and UP's 310 proved to be insufficient.