Ranji trophy 12/13: Jharkhand vs Andhra

Match Summary: Jharkhand (257 & 295/9d) drew with Andhra (410 & 32/4)

Points: Jharkhand 1, Andhra 3

This was a crucial game in terms of deciding who goes through into the knockouts. A top order collapse in the 1st innings put Jharkhand in big trouble but a century by Saurabh Tiwary and some good lower order partnership with Nadeem helped put on a decent total. Andhra were in a big spot of bother with 6 wickets gone and still trailing by almost 90 runs, but a big hundred by Amol Mazumdar, the all-time leading Ranji run getter took Andhra to a comfortable lead. Wicket-keeper Shiv Gautam took 5 catches in the Andhra innings. Tiwary missed a second century in the match getting out for 99 while Akash Verma scored 82. Though Jharkhand declared and gave Andhra some fright there wasn’t enough time and the match ended in a draw.

So Jharkhand get only 1 point taking their tally to 18 for the season. The team has now dropped to the 3rd place 2 points behind Andhra having played the same number of games. With 2 matches in hand, it could turn out to be a very close race for the 2 quarter-final spots.

Coming up next – a must win game against Kerala who are in 8th place in the group, starting December 22.

Season StatsLead Scorer – Saurabh Tiwary 554 @ 61.6, over 300 more than the next highest Akash VermaMost Wickets – Shahbaz Nadeem 29@ 24.6, with Sunny Gupta close behind with 26