Amidst the lengthening shadows and the setting chill around the Bansi Lal Stadium here,the Tamil Nadu dressing room would have been the warmest place to be in at Lahli. Many a back-slaps and handshakes later,Rajagopal Sathish emerged out of the dressing room,beaming and making the V-sign all aorund. Under pressure from the beginning with one eye on the run rate and another on the weather,with the calculators working overtime Sathish shepherded his flock into the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy with a crucial century. With fog disrupting play repeatedly over the four days,there were too many factors playing important roles in deciding who would progress from this match. Had there been no play,the visitors would have qualified with ease. But the fact that play was possible on Monday made things difficult. Tamil Nadu knew it was beyond them to overhaul Haryanas 379 for a first-innings lead,especially with a session lost due to fog,but they still had to score at a brisk pace to stay ahead of Haryanas run rate of 3.26 per over at all times. But for Sathish,the door to the semi-finals would have been shut on the visitors. TN were struggling at 91 for 4 at one stage. But skipper Dinesh Karthik and Sathish staged a counterattack and even though the scoreboard had moved to 182 when Karthik fell,Sathish was the wicket Haryana wanted; but he failed to oblige. With matters in balance,both the dressing rooms had players chewing nails and coaches shouting instructions to the players from outside. But Sathish was unfazed,his century had 15 fours and when he was eventually dismissed at the fag end of the day at 106,he had used just 130 balls and when Tamil Nadu ended the day at 285 for six,they had scored at 3.6 runs per over. Tamil Nadu now travel to Jaipur,where they face Rajasthan in the semifinal encounter. Brief scores: Haryana 379/6 decl; Tamil Nadu 285/6 (R Satish 108,Dinesh Karthik 57; Sanjay Budhwar 3/70,Joginder Singh 2/41) Karnataka overcome MP Indore: Karnataka got the better of Madhya Pradesh by five wickets to enter the semifinals here. After wrapping up MP quickly on the fourth morning,Karnataka successfully chased down 177,courtesy an unbeaten half century by Amith Verma (68). They now meet Baroda at Vadodara. Resuming at 312 for seven,Madhya Pradesh could added another 25 runs before being all-out for 337. The visitors faltered in their chase to struggle at 38 for three. But Verma put on 71 runs with CM Gautham (31) for the sixth wicket to ensure full points. Brief scores: MP 200 and 337 (Naman Ojha 68,Abbas Ali 64; Sunil Joshi 4/108); Karnataka 361 and 180/5 (Amit Verma 68*; TP Sudhindra 2/34) Baroda ride on first innings Railways fought their heart out but Baroda were never in doubt of booking a last-four spot on the basis of first innings lead as their quarter-final clash ended in a draw here. Their average first effort cost Railways dear as they were always playing catch up,though their performance improved as the match progressed. Railways resumed at 220 for four and declared their second innings at 366 for eight to set a 199-run victory target. Brief Scores: Railways 248 and 366/8 decl; Baroda 416 and 136/3 (Connor Williams 52,Kedar Devdhar 55; JP Yadav 1/15).
