CHENNAI: A professional display by Tamil Nadu enabled them to defeat Saurashtra by an innings and 33 runs on the third day of the quarterfinals of the Ranji Trophy played at Coimbatore on Sunday. Man of the Match R Sai Kishore, with 4/27 (match haul 9/93) in the second innings, was once again in his element to fashion one of the memorable wins of his career as the captain of Tamil Nadu.
Although Tamil Nadu could add only 38 runs to its overnight score of 300 runs, the 155-run lead proved decisive.
Saurashtra after conceding the lead to Tamil Nadu seemed to be a dejected lot. Thus in their second essay, barring Cheteshwar Pujara (46), none of their batters showed the will to take the battle into the final day. Plus on a wicket that wearing out fast, the Saurashtra batters lacked the patience and technique to counter the Tamil Nadu spinners
''Very pleased with the performance of the boys. They gave a professional display and I am very excited and thrilled that our team has got to the semifinals,'' said Sai Kishore.
Ajith Ram, (2/35), credited Sai Kishore's captaincy for the win. ''Pujara was looking solid and playing well. We tried hard but could not trouble him much and his defence was compact. So Sai Kishore insisted that we attack the batters at the other end and it worked,'' said Ajith Ram.
Sai Kishore admitted that they attacked other batters to exert pressure on Pujara. ''When a player of Pujara's calibre plays so defensively without taking risks, there was no chance of the match getting over soon. So I had a word with the boys and decided to put pressure on Pujara by gunning for the batters at the other end. When wickets fall regularly at the other end, it is bound to affect the settled batter's concentration and this is what we did to Pujara and eventually the former Saurashtra captain succumbed,'' narrated Sai Kishore.
The TN skipper said it was the team effort that helped them win the match. ''If you see our scorecard, none got a hundred, but almost all the guys got some runs. Some made 50, some got 30, some 20. I always believe that it is good to have four 50's rather than just one hundred and rest poor scores. Our batting depth once again helped us put a challenging score which had a bearing on the result,'' he said.
Speaking about conditions, Ajith Ram said the wicket had started wearing down and playing on the fourth day would have been difficult for any team. ''Had the game gone full stretch it could have gone either way, no one knows. But having said that we knew that Pujara was the only one who could play on the surface and once we got him out, it was half the job done. Plus we were confident that with the depth in our batting line up, we could chase down any target,'' said Ajith Ram.
Brief scores (quarterfinals): Saurashtra 183 & 122 in 75.4 ovs (Pujara 46; Sai Kishore 4/27) lost to Tamil Nadu 338; Vidarbha 460 & 50 for no loss in 14 ovs vs Karnataka 286 in 90.3 ovs (Jose 82, Samarth 59; Thakur 3/48, Sarwate 3/50); Mumbai 384 & 21/1 in 12 ovs vs Baroda 348 (Jyotsnil 32, Rawat 124, Solanki 136; Mulani 4/121); Madhya Pradesh 234 & 107 in 40.5 ovs (Mantri 43; Reddy 4/28, Mohan 3/20, Sasikanth 3/20) vs Andhra 172 & 95/4 in 44 ovs (Vihari 43 batting; Agarwal 2/22).