Mumbai's fifth innings defeat, Easwaran's second twin hundred

Mumbai's rare innings defeat
Mumbai suffered an innings defeat against Karnataka in the quarter-finals. The most successful team in Ranji Trophy history and the only one to play over 500 matches, innings defeats for Mumbai are a very rare occurrence. The loss by an innings and 20 runs against Karnataka is only their fifth such defeat in 84 seasons of the Ranji Trophy and only their second in last 65 years. Their last innings defeat had come against Tamil Nadu in 2014-15 and the one before that was way back in 1950-51 against Gujarat. Comparing some other successful teams in the Indian domestic circuit: Karnataka have had 11 such losses, the last of which was in 1999-00, Madhya Pradesh have had 12, Delhi 14 and Baroda 23.

Meanwhile Karnataka, who have been one of the most successful teams in recent years, registered their seventh innings victory of the last five Ranji seasons - the joint-most among all teams. Delhi also have seven innings wins in this period. Three of Karnataka's seven innings wins have come in this season - against Assam, Maharashtra and Mumbai. They have won five of their seven matches this season.

Abhimanyu Easwaran's second twin hundred
Bengal's 22-year-old opener Abhimanyu Easwaran struck centuries in both innings of the quarter-final against Gujarat. This is the second time he has done this in his Ranji career, which began in 2013-14. The first time he did so was in the previous season, against Uttar Pradesh. With this, he has become only the seventh player to have scored centuries in both innings of a Ranji Trophy match on more than one occasion. Gujarat's Mukund Parmar is the only one to have done it more than twice; he did it four times. Pankaj Roy is the only other Bengal player to have achieved this twice. The list also includes Vijay Hazare and VVS Laxman.