Tamil Nadu crush Punjab; Mumbai beat Himachal (Ranji Round Up)

Tamil Nadu crushed Punjab by an innings and 45 runs on the fourth and the last day of the Ranji Trophy Super League match at Amritsar Friday.

After deciding to bat, Punjab were trailing by 293 runs in their second knock, after Tamil Nadu piled 529 for nine declared in reply to hosts' 228 all out in the first innings.

Punjab entered the final day at 114 for five. The overnight pair of Pankaj Dharmani (56) and Gaurav Gambhir (19) added another 71 runs to their overnight total before Gambir fell to Suresh Kumar. The other two wickets fell in space of 22 runs and it was all but over for Punjab.

R. Ashwin took 5-116 while R. Aushik Srinivas (3-47) and Kumar (2-41) also did their bit in bowling out Punjab.

At Mumbai, the hosts and defending champions snatched an unlikely 85 run win over Himachal Pradesh. Needing 252 to win, Himachal Pradesh were soon struggling at 78 for 3 in the morning. A middle order collapse further added to Himachal's trouble. Sarandeep Singh(39) and Abhinav Bali (34) put up some fight but could not last for long.

For Mumbai, Harmeet Singh (3-38) and Iqbal Abdulla (3-61) were the best bowlers.

Brief scores:

At Rajkot, Saurashtra vs. Maharashtra: Saurashtra 544/3 declared; Maharashtra 289 all out (Rohan Bhosale 82, Ganesh Gaikwad 45; Sanjeeb Jobanputra 4-55) and 162/5 (Kedar Jadhav 111 not out, Rakesh Dhurv 3-71)

At Hyderabad, Hyderabad vs. Gujarat: Hyderabad 236 all out and 2/0; Gujarat 536 all out (Parthiv Patel 105, Rujul Bhatt 186, Niraj Patel 58, Bhavik Thaker 54; A. Absolem 3-118)

At Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh vs. Baroda: Baroda 234 all out and 331 all out (Connor Williams 96, Yusuf Pathan 78, Praveen Gupta 4-83, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 3-41) Uttar Pradesh 240 all out and 8/1 (Shivakant Shukla 5 not out, Mohammad Kaif 3 not out)

At Amritsar, Punjab vs. Tamil Nadu: Punjab 228 all out and 248 all out (Abhinav Kakkar 33, Pankaj Dharmani 56, R Ashwin 5-116, R Aushik Srinivas 3-47; Tamil Nadu 521/9.

At Bhubaneswar, Orissa vs. Railways: Railways 307/8 (V. Cheluvaraj 88, Krishnakant Upadhyay 49 not out; Debasis Mohanty 3-42, Basanth Mohanty 2-66. A.K. Sahoo 2-88); Orissa 132/4 (Shiv Sunder Das 41, Rakesh Mohanty 37 not out, Sanjib Sanyal 1-14)

At Mumbai, Mumbai vs. Himachal Pradesh: Mumbai 162 and 335/7 declared; Himachal Pradesh 246 and 166 all out (Abhinav Bali 34, Sarandeep Singh 39, Harmeet SIngh 3-38, Iqbal Abdulla 3-61)

At Mysore, Bengal vs Karnataka: Bengal 324 all out and 213/6 (Deep Dasgupta 55, Manoj Tiwary 65 not out, R Vinay Kumar 2-35); Karnataka 523/9

Last updated on Nov 20^th, 2009 at 21:46 pm IST--IANS