Railways sneak past Tamil Nadu in a thriller
A round-up of the quarter-final matches that took place on March 17
Cricinfo staff
17-Mar-2006
Two run-outs in successive deliveries in the last over proved costly for Tamil Nadu as Railways prevailed by one run in a thrilling encounter and advanced to the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy one-day tournament. Chasing 278, Tamil Nadu were in the contest after solid contributions from their middle order, particularly Hemang Badani (70) and S Badrinath (66), but collapsed shortly after. Sanjay Bangar, the Railways captain, swung it back in his team's favour, bowling a tight penultimate over and running out G Vignesh, the last to be dismissed. A five-run penalty imposed on Tamil Nadu earlier also proved decisive, courtesy Badani, their captain. He left the field but made the fundamental error of failing to inform the umpires once he returned.
Earlier, Railways chose to bat and put in a good performance after their openers got them off to a sound start. Amit Pagnis and JP Yadav scored half-centuries and added exactly 100 for the third wicket. Shreyas Khanolkar chipped in with 45 and got good support from the middle order which helped take the side past the 250 mark. Syed Mohammad was the most successful bowler for Tamil Nadu with 3 for 21.
Uttar Pradesh easily beat Karnataka by seven wickets in a one-sided encounter at Kanpur and advanced to the semi-finals. The UP seamers were particularly impressive, with Shalabh Srivastava and Ali Murtaza taking three wickets each as Karnataka struggled throughout after choosing to bat. Srivastava took a wicket off the first ball of the match, bowling Gaurav Dhiman. UP easily overhauled the target of 124 in the 26th over. with Ravikanth Shukla remaining unbeaten on 42.