When it really mattered, things went Kerala’s way as it came up with a comprehensive eight-wicket victory over Madhya Pradesh to qualify for the pre-quarterfinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy here on Tuesday.
Before Kerala took the field at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground, Gujarat (16 points) posted a five-wicket victory over Bihar to not only qualify for the quarterfinal but also avoid a three-way tie at the top. This went to help Kerala's cause.
Since there is no role of net run rate in case of a two-way tie, it came down to a win-and-qualify situation for MP and Kerala. As it turned out, the one-sided result tied the teams at 12 points but
Kerala advanced because this head-to-head result against MP was considered to break the tie.
Put in, MP posted a challenging 171/5 with Rajat Patidar top-scoring with 77 (49b, 7x4, 3x6) before being out to the last ball of the innings. He was well supported by opener Kuldeep Gehi (31) and then Parth Sahani (32).
In response, Kerala cruised to an emphatic win after riding on an unbroken 110-run stand between Sanju Samson (56 n.o. 33b, 4x4, 3x6) and Sachin Baby (51 n.o. 27b, 4x4, 3x6).
The other two matches, too, were one-sided.
Gujarat restricted Bihar to 118/6 and then finished the job, thanks to the unbroken sixth-wicket stand of 60 runs between Het Patel (45) and Piyush Chawla (27).
In a match that had no bearing on the qualifying race to the knockout phase, Railways (8) cruised to a 48-run victory over Assam (8).
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