Opener Abhijeet Tomar struck a well-paced hundred as Rajasthan recorded their first-ever win over Tamil Nadu in the history of Vijay Hazare Trophy One-Day tournament to enter the quarter-finals in Vadodara on Thursday.
At the Kotambi Stadium, Tomar (111 off 125) shared a 160-run stand with skipper Mahipal Lomror (60 off 49) for the second wicket to set the platform for Rajasthan's 267 all out in 47.3 overs.
Tamil Nadu and India spinner Varun Chakaravarthy registered wonderful figures of 5/52 but it was not enough to get his team over the line.
Chakaravarthy (18 off 22) also chipped in the with the bat as wickets kept falling at the other end before being the last man to be dismissed, limiting Tamil Nadu to 248 all out in 47.1 overs.
Rajasthan pacer Aman Singh Shekhawat (3/58) got the wicket Chakaravarthy, who was caught at long-on, to take Rajasthan to victory.
Rajasthan will face Vidarbha in the quarter-finals on Sunday.
The star for the winning team was undoubtedly Tomar, who struggled a bit against the new ball before gaining in confidence to complete his fourth List A hundred.
He played all around the ground and his innings included 12 fours and four sixes. Tomar brought up a memorable hundred with a single in the 30th over.
In the other preliminary quarter-final played at Motibaug Cricket Ground, Haryana bulldozed over Bengal by 72 runs following an all-rounder effort form Parth Vats (62 off 77) and Nishant Sandhu (64 off 67), who struck half-centuries before taking couple of wickets each.
S P Kumar came up with a timely cameo down the order to push the score to 298 for nine in 50 overs.
India pacer Mohammad Shami, playing his third game of the tournament, went for runs as he took 3/61 in 10 overs, while Mukesh Kumar bagged 2/56 but Bengal came a cropper in the run chase as they were bowled out for 226 in 43.1 overs.
In the quarter-finals on Saturday, Haryana take on Gujarat, while Karnataka play against Baroda and Maharashtra clash against Punjab in the other last eight games.
© 2025 Rediff.com -