Andhra qualify for quarterfinals

Visakhapatnam: Andhra qualified for the knockout stage of the Ranji trophy championship after Maharashtra and last year’s runners-up Mumbai tied on the first innings lead and failed to force a result in their last league match in Mumbai on Friday.Andhra are expecting a knockout berth since Thursday after they secured a bonus-point win over Assam at Vizianagaram for a total tally of 26 points, and Maharashtra and Mumbai (who have 25 and 23 points respectively before the start of the last round matches) were tied on the first innings totals which meant that each could add only one point to their tallies. Another exciting angle to the race for knockout berths emerged when Saurashtra (26 points) lost to Tamil Nadu on the last day of their match on Friday. Thus three teams ended up with 26 points each and Saurashtra took the first place with their better run quotient of 1.277 and Andhra (1.119) pipped Maharashtra (1.345) for the second berth in spite of having a lesser quotient, because bonus point wins are considered first for deciding the order of placing the teams when they are tied on points.This is Andhra’s seventh entry into the knockout stage of the Ranji Trophy. The first was in 1986 when they made the quarterfinals, against Rajasthan, followed by last eight entries in 2014-25, 2019-20 vs Maharashtra and Saurashtra respectively and now in the current season. Andhra entered pre-quarterfinals in 2002 and back to back plate group semifinals in 2009-10 and 2010-11 where they lost to Assam and Madhya Pradesh respectively in the away matches, informed ACA statistician AL Narasimham. However, Andhra have not progressed from the first round in any knockout phase and hope to reverse the trend when they face Madhya Pradesh in the quarterfinal starting on January 31. Quarterfinal line-up: Bengal (A group topper) vs Jharkhand (C2), Saurashtra (B1) vs Punjab (D2), Karnataka (C1) vs. Uttarakhand (A2) and Madhya Pradesh (D1) vs. Andhra (B2). Elite Group B final standings: 1. Saurashtra (26, 1.277 RQ), 2. Andhra (26, 1.119), 3. Maharashtra (26, 1.345), 4. Mumbai (24), 5. Tamil Nadu (21), 6. Delhi (17), 7. Assam (11), 8. Hyderabad (1).