Forty times champions Mumbai qualified for the Ranji Trophy finals on the basis of the first innings lead against Madhya Pradesh in the second semi-final on Wednesday in Cuttack. Needing 472 runs on the final day, Madhya Pradesh put up a strong fight with Naman Ojha and Harpreet Singh Bhatia scoring centuries. However, with no realistic chance of overhauling to the mammoth target, the match ended in a draw in the third session with MP on 361/5 in 109 overs.
Mumbai will now meet Saurashtra in what will be a repeat of the 2012-13 season. Saurashtra had booked their place in the final - to be played at Pune from February 24-28 - after their easy win over Assam in just three days in the first semi-final in Vadodara.
This will be the 45th appearance in the final of India’s premier domestic competition for Mumbai. The young team led by Aditya Tare were firm favourites after the league stage. Eyeing their sixth outright win this season, Mumbai faced resistance from Naman OJha, who finally got to his first Ranji Trophy this season. His 15th first-class hundred meant Mumbai bowlers had to work extremely hard on the final day after the initial breakthrough in the first hour that saw Aditya Srivastava departing for 68.
Naman put up a solid stand with Harpreet for the fourth wicket. The two added 159 runs which played a major role in Mumbai not getting the outright victory. Once Naman got out to part-time spin of Suryakumar Yadav, Harpreet carried on and brought up his century in 179 balls in the final session. Mumbai used as many as nine bowlers on the day and like Naman, Harpreet too was dismissed by a part-timer. It was Mumbai opener, Bhavin Thakkar, who removed Harpreet after the latter had scored his second straight century.
Brief scores: Madhya Pradesh 227/10 (Naman Ojha 79, Balwinder Sandhu 5-43) and 361/5 (Naman Ojha 113, Harpreet Singh Bhatia 105) drew with Mumbai 371/10 (Shreyas Iyer 90, Aditya Tare 68, Chandrakant Sakhure 5-137) and 426/10 (Suryakumar Yadav 115, Aditya Tare 109, Harpreet Singh Bhatia 3-55).
