Despite centuries from opener P Rahul and skipper
Sachin Baby,
Kerala failed to progress to the quarterfinals of the
Ranji Trophy from Elite 'A' Group in Rajkot on Sunday.
In reply to
Madhya Pradesh
's huge first innings score of 585 for nine declared, Kerala ended the match at 432 for nine. As the first innings of both the teams were not completed, the two teams shared a point apiece from the game and finished tied on 14 points from three matches. However, MP (2.147) progressed to the knockouts as they had a better quotient than Kerala (1.648).
But for a large part of the day it looked as if Kerala would eclipse the quotient of MP as the two southpaws, Rahul and Baby, put together a 189-run stand for the third wicket.
While Rahul made a circumspect136 (368b, 18x4), Baby played a more aggressive innings and notched up a brilliant 114 (234b, 11x4, 2x6). During the time the pair were together at the crease, Kerala managed to keep the quotient under control. But Kerala's innings lost its way once the two departed in the space of five overs. MP bowlers then chipped away ät the wickets of the Kerala lower-middle order as the latter fell behind the run quotient.
For MP,
Ishwar Pandey
and
Anubhav Agarwal
claimed three wickets each.
"It's unfortunate that we have been edged out on the run quotient and we couldn't qualify despite playing so well. But we can't help it as that is how the format is and only one team qualifies from a group. We have ticked most of the boxes this season. The batting has been phenomenal with eight hundreds coming in three games. But there are areas to improve on and I think this is a group that can only get better with time," said Kerala head coach
Tinu Yohannan.
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