Ranji Trophy champions Uttar Pradesh crushed Karnataka by seven wickets to move into the semi-finals of the limited overs Inter-State tournament in Kanpur on Friday.
In the other quarter final, however, last year's joint winners Tamil Nadu lost to Railways by a single run, courtsey a five-run penalty imposed by the adjudicators, despite having the upper edge in the match at the OEF ground.
Winning the toss at the Green Park stadium, Karnataka decided to bat first -- a decision that was proved wrong by the UP bowlers, who demolished the entire batting line-up of the southern state for a paltry 123 by the 40th over.
Robin Uttapha (20), Tilak Naidu (21) and former Team India all-rounder Sunil Joshi (25) tried hard with the willow but in vain against the UP bowlers, led by pacer Shalabh Srivastava (three for 31), Ali Murtaza (three for 20) and Praveen Kumar and Ratnesh Mishra, who all claimed two scalps apiece.
The easy UP chase, however, suffered initial shivers, with openers Rohit Prakash and Shivakant Shukla falling cheaply for three and nought respectively.
The hosts were steadied by Team India player Suresh Raina, making his debut as captain of UP. The plucky southpaw brought back to track the UP chase, before falling prey to leg spinner Sunil Joshi for 37, which included six boundaries.
The hosts were powered to victory by Ravikant Shukla and former skipper Jyoti Yadav, who remained not out on 42 and 25 respectively.
The other quarter-final, played at OEF ground, turned out to be punishment for Tamil Nadu, who, despite scoring more than their rivals, ended up losers courtsey a five-run penalty imposed by the adjudicators.
Winning the toss, Railways decided to bat first. Powered by knocks of 64 by Amit Pagnis and discarded Team India all-rounder J P Yadav (57) they were all out for 272 in 49.3 overs.
A costly error by former India batasman Hemang Badani, however, forced the umpires to add five runs to the Railways' total as a penalty against Tamil Nadu.
While fielding, Badani went off the field after informing the umpires, but did not do the same before entering the ground.
Taking swift notice of the lapse, the umpires imposed a penalty of five runs on Tamil Nadu, consequently resulting in the addition of five more runs to Railways' total of 272, which then read 277.
For the southern state, Syed Mohd. claimed three wickets, while M R Sriniwas and G Vignesh bagged two scalps each.
In reply, despite stellar knocks of 70 by Badani, skipper S Badrinath (66) and M Vijay (38), Tamil Nadu were all out for 276 in the 50th over, falling a run short of the rescheduled target.
For Railways J P Yadav, S Khanolkar took two wickets each, while captain Sanjay Bangar and leg spinner Kulamani Parida ended up with a wicket each.
In the semi-finals on March 19 in Lucknow, while hosts and last year joint-winners UP take on Baroda, Railways will play Sourav Ganguly-powered Bengal.
