The Ranji Trophy final this time will be played between Kerala and Vidarbha. In the semi-final on Friday (February 21), Vidarbha beat Mumbai by 80 runs. Meanwhile, Kerala reached the final because of a 2-run lead in the first innings against Gujarat. The Ranji Trophy final will be played between Vidarbha and Kerala starting February 26. The venue for the match is yet to be finalised. Kerala has made it to the Ranji final for the first time. Semi-final-1: Vidarbha defeated Mumbai On the 5th day of the match at VCA Stadium in Nagpur, Mumbai started playing from their overnight score of 83/3. The team had a target of 406 runs. Akash Anand got out after scoring 39 runs. After him, Shivam Dubey made 12 and Suryakumar Yadav could only score 23 runs. The team had lost 5 wickets for 115 runs. From there, Shams Mulani scored 46, Shardul Thakur made 66, Tanush Kotian scored 26, Mohit Avasthi made 34, and Royston Das scored 23 runs. The team was bowled out for 325 runs and Vidarbha won the match by 80 runs. Mumbai had fallen behind in the first innings Harsh Dubey from Vidarbha took 5 wickets. Yash Thakur and Parth Rekhade got 2 wickets each. 1 batter was also run out. In the first innings, Vidarbha scored 383 and Mumbai scored 270 runs. In the second innings, Vidarbha scored 292 runs and gave Mumbai a target of 406 runs.
Semifinal-2: Kerala gets decisive 2-run lead On the 5th day at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat started playing from the score of 429/7. Kerala had scored 457 runs in the first innings. From Gujarat, Jaymeet Patel got out after scoring 79 runs. Gujarat needed 22 more runs for a first innings lead. Siddharth Desai got out as the 9th wicket after scoring 30 runs. Arjan Nagwaswala and Priyajitsinh Jadeja batted for 10 overs and took the score to 455 runs. Aditya Sarvate came to bowl. Arjan played the fourth ball of the over on the back foot, the ball hit the fielder's helmet at short leg. After hitting the helmet, the ball went into the hands of Sachin Baby at first slip, he took the catch and Gujarat was bowled out for 455. Sarvate-Saxena took 4 wickets each Kerala took a 2-run lead in the first innings, and won the match based on this lead. Kerala scored 114 runs for the loss of 4 wickets by the end of day's play in their second innings. In the first innings, Jalaj Saxena and Aditya Sarvate took 4 wickets each for Kerala. MD Nidheesh and N Basil got 1 wicket each. Vidarbha 2-time Champion Vidarbha has reached the Ranji Trophy final for the fourth time. The team will play in the final for the second consecutive time. Last time they were defeated by Mumbai. The team has also become champion by defeating Delhi in 2017-18 and Saurashtra in 2018-19. On the other hand, Kerala will play the Ranji Trophy final for the first time.Original Article