Jharkhand beat Haryana to enter Ranji Trophy semis

Vadodara, Dec 26 : Jharkhand defeated Haryana by five wickets after chasing down a fourth-innings target of 175 runs on the fourth day of their Ranji Trophy cricket quarter-final at the Moti Bagh Stadium here on Monday.

Haryana, who were 146-2 on the third day, were dismissed for 262 runs as left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem took four wickets for 78 runs for a match figure of 11-157. Leg-spinner Samar Quadri picked 3-75 in the second innings.

Jharkhand, who had a first innings lead of 87 runs, chased down the total in a hurry, thanks to opener Ishan Kishan's blistering knock of a 61-ball 86.

Haryana would be ruing a middle-order batting collapse as they were nicely placed at 146-2 on the third day with a lead of 59 runs.

Shivam Chauhan and Chaitanya Bishnoi, who were unbeaten on their individual scores of 33 and 22 respectively, handled the first hour of play quite well. They had shared a 87-run stand for the third wicket when Nadeem gave Jharkhand the breakthrough by removing Shivam (43), with Haryna at 178-3.

Nadeem then dismissed Rajat Paliwal (2), while Kaushal Singh got into the act by getting the key wicket of Bishnoi (52) to ignite Jharkhand's hopes as Haryana were reduced to 188-5.

Nadeem struck again, getting a LBW decision for Rohit Sharma and Amit Mishra (0) ran himself out as they crumbled. Till then, Haryana were 193-7, with a lead of merely 106 runs.

Lower-order batsmen Sanjay Pahal (29), Harshal Patel (25) and Yuzvendra Chahal (12) tried their level best to push Haryana's total. Quadri sent back Sanjay, while Harshal was accounted for by Rahul Shukla. With Nadeem removing Chahal, Haryana's innings ended at 262, setting a target of 175 for Jharkhand.

And Jharkhand went about their business fluently. Openers Ishan (86) and Anand Singh (27) provided a 91-run stand to get their side only 84 behind the target.

Left-hander Ishan, who was India's captain at the 2016 Under-19 World Cup, punished all the bowlers as he smacked nine fours and six sixes to score 86 from just 61 deliveries.

When medium pacer Pahal removed Ishan, Jharkhand were only 26 runs away from the target. And even though Virat Singh (21), Sumit Kumar (18) and Ishank Jaggi (8) fell cheaply, they were hardly pressurised.

In the end, Kaushal Singh (12 not out) and Saurabh Tiwary (0 not out) saw the team home to reach the semi-finals.

Brief scores: Haryana 258 all out and 262 all out (Chaitanya Bishnoi 52, Shivam Chauhan 43; Shahbaz Nadeem 4-78, Samar Quadri 3-75) vs Jharkhand 345 and 178-5 (Ishan Kishan 86; Sanjay Pahal 2-36, Yuzvendra Chahal 2-43). Jharkhand won by five wickets on fourth day.