Mumbai entered the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal for the first time in four years after wrapping up Odisha’s lower order in a little over an hour on the last day’s play of the Elite Group D game.
The spin duo of Shams Mulani (5/64) - who picked his fourth five-wicket haul of the season - and Tanul Kotian (3/31) shared the remaining five wickets of Odisha and helped Mumbai register a convincing victory by an innings and 108 runs.
Even before Abhishek Raut and Debasish Samantray took guard with Odisha 84 for five - still 164 runs behind making Mumbai bat again - the writing was on the wall. It took Mumbai only 15 overs on the last morning to complete the formalities.
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Captain Prithvi Shaw started the day off with Mulani, the left-arm spinner, and Siddharth Raut’s pace. While Raut was unlucky to have been deprived of a breakthrough, with an lbw appeal against Raut being turned down.
In the seventh over, Mulani placed a deep mid-wicket and leftie Samantray found Kotian over there perfectly. In the next over, Mulani completed his five-for, with Rajesh Mohanty being his 29th victim of the season.
Just when Mulani was looking set to run through the tail, Raut made way for Kotian who got rid of the last three batters in just two overs. The moment Abhishek Raut (59,71b, 9x4) was sharply stumped by Aditya Tare off Kotian, Odisha had little resistance to put on, with debutant Prasant Rana being cleaned up even before the first drinks
interval to give way to Mumbai’s celebration.
Mumbai thus topped Group D with 16 points and booked a place in the quarterfinals, to be played in June, for the first time since 2017-18.
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