Cricket News

Mumbai reach Ranji semi-final, break 90 years old record in the process

This season’s Ranji Trophy is inching towards its culmination with UP and MP already qualified for the semi-finals. Another team joining these two is Mumbai who have swept aside a poor Uttarakhand team to book their berth in the semi-finals. In the process of qualifying, the Mumbai side have also broken a 90-year-old record.

Mumbai won their quarter-finals game by a mammoth 725 runs going past the previously held record of 685 runs held by New South Wales from the 1929-30 season when they beat Queensland in the Sheffield Shield.The base for this humongous win was laid in the first innings itself when Mumbai put forth 647 runs on the back of 252 by Suved Parkar and 153 from Sarfaraz Khan. Playing in his debut match, Parkar went on to become the second-highest scorer on debut falling just short of his coach Amol Muzumdar’s 260. Their bowling was equally taxing for Uttarakhand having bowled them out for a meagre 114. With an intent of a big win, Mumbai chose to bat again despite having a monstrous 533 run lead.

Their batters were on it in the second innings as well, with the openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Prithvi Shaw scoring a quickfire 103 and 72, the Maharastra team declared at 261-3.

Uttarakhand at this point would have hoped to improve their first innings showing and go out fighting. From the onset of their second innings, however, Uttarakhand succumbed to Mumbai’s pressure and were bowled out for a paltry 69. Like their batsmen, Mumbai bowlers were equally insistent on record win by bowling out the Uttarkhand team for a total of 183 taking 20 wickets in the process. Shams Mulai was their pick of the bowlers taking eight wickets in the match with Dhawal Kulkarni and Tanush Kotian taking four each. With this massive win, Mumbai are into the semi-finals and would play one of UP, MP or the winner of the Bengal and Jharkhand match.