Three points will be added to the account of the team that takes the lead in the first innings of Ranji. But with the scores being equal, the match ended in a draw and Maharashtra and Mumbai were tied with one point each. With this, Andhra reached the quarter-final after winning the innings against Assam by 95 runs and getting a bonus point.
In fact, even the captain of the team, Hanuma Vihari, did not expect that Andhra would reach the quarter finals. As a result, we have won four out of seven matches this year. We fought well. But not ours this year. Next season we will fight stronger..harder. “Proud to lead this team that has performed 100 percent on the field,” he tweeted. Vihari, who deleted this tweet when he came to know that Andhra has reached the quarter finals, tweeted another saying ‘Quarter Finals’.
Another thing is that while Maharashtra and Andhra teams have 26 points each.. Maharashtra’s net run rate (+1.345) is higher than Andhra’s net run rate (+1.119). But while Maharashtra won only three, Andhra reached the quarters with four wins.
In Group-B, Andhra surprised everyone by bypassing strong teams like Maharashtra and Mumbai to reach the quarters. Saurashtra also reached the next stage from this group.
Bengal and Uttarakhand from Group-A, Karnataka and Jharkhand from Group-C, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab from Group-D have qualified for the quarter finals. In the quarters Andhra team will face the defending champion Madhya Pradesh. The quarter final matches will be played between January 31-February 4. The semifinals will start on February 8 and the final on February 16.
