Pacer Mohammed Shami rarely operated at his best and it had a cascading effect on Bengal as they went down by 41 runs against Baroda in the quarterfinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy here on Wednesday.
Opener Shashwat Rawat top-scored with a 26-ball 40 (1x4, 3x6) as Baroda posted a competitive 172 for seven, and Bengal ended up with 131 all out despite Shahbaz Ahmed (55, 36b, 3x4, 4x6) playing a fine cameo.
Skipper Hardik Pandya (3/27) along with his pace colleagues Lukeman Merriwala (3/17) and Atit Sheth (3/41) were the lead bowlers in Baroda's stroll into the semifinals.
Shami's outing was more in focus as the seasoned quick has been striving hard to join the Indian squad in Australia at least for the last two Tests of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
His overall numbers ahead of this match was 11 wickets from eight matches at an economy rate of 7.8, but on this day Shami looked anything but sharp.
He started with two wides in the first over and hardly looked in control of the proceedings for the rest of his spell.
The 34-year-old clocked deliveries around 140 clicks across two spells and bowled a few yorkers, but generally struggled to zoom in on the stumps as he often does.
Shivalik Sharma (24, 17b) clobbered him for two successive sixes, though one was an edge that flew behind the third man.
Shami got two consolation wickets of Shivalik and Atit Sheth towards the end when Baroda was trying to accelerate.
Shami could not make any impact with the bat either falling for a two-ball duck to India teammate Hardik Pandya.
Later, Baroda pacer Merriwala derailed Bengal's chase taking three wickets in the fourth over.
Merriwala got rid of in-form Karan Lal, skipper Sudip Kumar Gharami and Writtick Chatterjee, who fell to a sensational tumbling return catch.
Shahbaz tried to resurrect Bengal's innings towards the backend but there was no real support for him.
MP in semis
In the other quarterfinals at Alur, Madhya Pradesh rode on the all-round show of Venkatesh Iyer to enter the last four with a fine six-wicket win over Saurashtra.
Venkatesh took two wickets and made an unbeaten 38 off 33 balls as MP overhauled Saurashtra's 173 for seven with four balls to spare.
Brief scores:
At Bengaluru: Baroda: 171/7 in 20 overs (Shashwat Rawat 40, Abhimanyu Rajput 37, Shivalik Sharma 24; Mohammed Shami 2/43, Pradipta Pramanik 2/6) beat Bengal: 131 all out in 18 overs (Shahbaz Ahmed 55, Ritwik Roy Chowdhury 29; Lukeman Merriwala 3/17, Hardik Pandya 3/27, Atit Sheth 3/41) by 41 runs.
At Alur: Saurashtra: 173/7 in 20 overs (Chirag Jani 80 not out; Venkatesh Iyer 2/23) lost to Madhya Pradesh: 174/4 in 19.4 overs (Arpit Gaud 42, Venkatesh Iyer 38 not out, Rajat Patidar 28) by 6 wickets.
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