Tamil Nadu, Karnataka through to semifinals 

KOCHI:  Defending champions Tamil Nadu secured a comfortable win over Kerala while Karnataka beat Bengal in Super Over in the quarterfinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy on Thursday. The other two teams to move into the semifinals are Vidarbha and Hyderabad.

Holders Tamil Nadu chased down a challenging total of 181/4 posted by Kerala thanks to a collective batting effort at the Arun Jaitely Stadium in New Delhi. Having won the toss, Tamil Nadu had opted to field first. 

Meanwhile, the most thrilling quarterfinal was arguably between Karnataka and Bengal, which went into the Super Over. Karnataka posted 160/5 after being asked to bat first. Bengal was within touching distance of a win only for Manish Pandey to effect a run out off the last ball of Bengal’s innings as they finished at 160/8. Bengal lost both wickets for only five runs in the Super Over. Pandey took just two balls to chase down the target finishing off with a six. 

In the semifinals, Tamil Nadu will face Hyderabad and Karnataka will take on Vidarbha. Both the matches will take place on Saturday with TN vs Hyderabad scheduled to start at 8:30 AM.

Brief scores: Kerala 181/4 in 20 ovs (Vinod 65 n.o, Kunnummal 51, Sanjay 2/23) lost to Tamil Nadu 187/5 in 19.3 ovs (Sudharsan 46, Shankar 33, Manukrishnan 3/26) by 5 wickets; Karnataka 160/5 in 20 ovs (Nair 55 n.o, W Chatterjee 1/23) tied with Bengal 160/8 in 20 ovs (W Chatterjee 51, Roy Chowdhury 36 n.o, Darshan 3/26); Hyderabad 158/5 in 20 ovs (Tilak 75, Chawla 2/9) bt Gujarat 128/8 in 20 ovs (Ripal 35, Teja 3/27) by 30 runs; Rajasthan 84/8  in 20 ovs (Nagarkoti 39, Thakur 2/24) lost to Vidarbha 87/1 (Taide 40) by 9 wickets.