Himanshu ton and all-round bowling lead Haryana into their maiden Vijay Hazare final

Haryana stormed into their maiden Vijay Hazare Trophy final by thrashing five-time champions and a star-studded Tamil Nadu in the first semi-final in Rajkot. Haryana's historic win was set up by an unbeaten century from No. 3 Himanshu Rana, a blitzy finish from Sumit Kumar that propelled the score to 293 for 7, and the bowling attack that combined to bowl out Tamil Nadu for 230 in the absence of their lead spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who left for South Africa for national duty.

Opting to bat, Haryana started slow before Yuvraj Singh and Himanshu picked up pace with a second-wicket partnership of 132. The middle order, however, could not capitalise on Yuvraj's 65 off 79 and Haryana slipped from 170 for 2 to 206 for 6 as most batters fell while attempting big shots. Himanshu, meanwhile, continued to pull and drive to anchor the innings before the No. 8 Sumit joined Himanshu to lift Haryana again. He started with a first-ball six and smoked three fours and two more sixes for a game-changing partnership of 75 off 42 that ensured Haryana collected 69 runs in the last five, including 43 runs off three overs from T Natarajan, and a 19-run over from Varun Chakravarthy.

Himanshu brought up his century off 110 balls and scored nearly half of his runs in boundaries, with 11 fours and two sixes that earned him his second century of the tournament.

Tamil Nadu were dented in their chase even before it started because their regular No. 3 Baba Indrajit injured his face by slipping in the bathroom in the innings break, and had to move down to No. 5. Haryana strengthened their position further in the game by dismissing Baba Aparajith - caught down the leg side - and Hari Nishaanth within the first three overs. Vijay Shankar dug in for nearly 50 minutes but he was run-out while attempting a very risky single, and the well-set N Jagadeesan soon lobbed a catch to short fine leg off a sweep. Tamil Nadu were 76 for 4 in the 21st over and even though they still had Indrajith, captain Dinesh Karthik and Shahrukh Khan left, neither could take them close to the target.

With the asking rate already over 7.50 an over, Karthik smashed three sixes over the midwicket boundary and Indrajith scored a brisk half-century with strokes all around the ground. Karthik, however, miscued a pull to be caught at midwicket in the 31st over, and Shahrukh holed out three overs later to all but seal's Tamil Nadu's elimination. Anshul Kamboj soon had Indrajith caught at short fine leg and struck two more times in consecutive overs to finish with 4 for 30.

Karthik lamented the loss by saying that it was a "very chasable total," and credited his fast bowlers but said his batters did not really click when they needed big partnerships, an area he wanted his team to improve in to score big totals.

Haryana captain Ashok Menaria lauded his team for stepping up in the absence of Chahal, especially because he admitted that at the halfway stage, he thought 293 would not be enough.