Auqib Nabi starred for Jammu & Kashmir with 12 wickets in their 56-run win over Madhya Pradesh in the 2025/26 Ranji Trophy quarter-finals.
Auqib Nabi continues exceptional first-class form
The speedster followed up a seven-wicket haul in the first innings with a five-for in the second to propel Jammu and Kashmir to their first-ever Ranji Trophy semi-final. He now has 46 wickets in the ongoing season and 44 from the last, making it 90 across the last two terms. He has at least one more game to add to that figure.
Chasing 291, Madhya Pradesh’s innings never got going, with Nabi drawing first blood by removing Yash Dubey in the final session of day three. He picked up two more wickets in the day, including that of MP captain Rajat Patidar, to reduce them to 87-5 by stumps.
Venkatesh Iyer fell soon after the restart on day four, but Shubham Sharma (32) and Saransh Jain (64) seemingly delayed the inevitable by adding 41 runs for the seventh wicket. Jain added another 46 with Ramveer Gurjar for the eighth, before Nabi broke the stand, and 20 with Aryan Pandey for the ninth.
The J&K star speedster then bowled the all-rounder to douse any hopes of an improbable win and complete a five-for. Pandey and Kuldeep Sen held on for a little over seven overs, but that wasn’t enough as the north Indian side made their first Ranji semis.
2nd Quarter Final, Madhya Pradesh vs Jammu and Kashmir
vs
- Ball by ball Over
J&K were put into bat by Patidar, but were all out for just 194 with opener Shubham Khajuria top-scoring with 60. Nabi then picked up a scintillating seven-wicket haul, his second of the season, to hand his side a crucial 42-run lead. A more assured showing from the lower-middle order took J&K to 248, with left-arm spinner Vanshaj Sharma scoring 54 from No.8, to hand MP a 291-run target.
J&K will face Bengal in the semi-finals, scheduled to start on February 15. Uttarakhand, who will also be playing their first-ever Ranji semi-final, will face Karnataka in the other last-four encounter.
Image Credits: BCCI/X
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