KL Rahul Available For Ranji Trophy Semifinal At Eden Gardens

The right-handed batsman KL Rahul, who had a scintillating season so far set to play for Karnataka in the upcoming semifinal against Bengal. The match is scheduled to play at Eden Gardens in Kolkata from February 29th. Earlier, Rahul was requested to rest for the quarter-final clash against Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Karnataka had also strengthened by the addition of Manish Pandey for Semifinals, with each Pandey and Rahul having returned from New Zealand after India accomplished the limited-overs leg of their tour.

Rahul has been in red-hot form for quite some time. He seems to have come of age. Surprisingly, the lad from Karnataka has turned into a multi-purpose cricketer. Be it sharing opening duties with Rohit Sharma, batting in the middle order or keeping wickets for his side.

KL Rahul ready to deliver in the semifinal clash at Eden Gardens:

The Karnataka’s batting mainstay has been punching well above his weight, which will work in his team’s favour.

It seemed J&K would brush Karnataka aside for a first-innings lead and possibly a semifinal berth at the Government Gandhi Memorial Science College Ground in Jammu. But that wasn’t to be, as Prasidh Krishna precipitated a collapse before lunch to prevent J&K from taking the lead.

Krishnappa Gowtham’s seven-for floors J&K:

And Karnataka batted well for most for the rest of Day Four to secure a mightier grip.

Later, Krishnappa Gowtham’s seven-wicket haul induced a late collapse to beat J&K by 167 runs to register an outright victory. Gujarat, Bengal, Karnataka and Saurashtra had finished on top of the combined Groups A and B table, and all four progressed to the semi-finals after dominating their respective quarter-final matches.

Last year’s finalists Saurashtra will take on Gujarat in the other semi-final, at Rajkot. The other prominent players who will be part of the last four include Parthiv Patel (Gujarat), Jaydev Unadkat (Saurashtra) and Manoj Tiwary (Bengal).

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