Vishnu Solanki anchors Baroda into semifinal

Vishnu Solanki anchored Baroda into the semifinals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy here on Wednesday.

Requiring 18 runs of the last over, Solanki pull off a last-over heist against Haryana with a sensational 71, which included a six off the game's final ball, to fire his team into last four.

Baroda first restricted Haryana to 148-7 in the third quarterfinal, and then it was Solanki, who hammered four fours and five sixes in his 46-ball unbeaten knock to get his team over the line after 18 runs were needed off the final over.

Haryana had brought down the equation to 23 off 12 balls for Baroda and their skipper Mohit Sharma (0/30) conceded only five runs in the penultimate over to make the equation tougher for Baroda.

However, 28-year-old Solanki had other plans and took on medium pacer Sumit Kumar (1/37) in the final over, hitting two sixes and a four, to script an eight-wicket win for his team.

The right-handed batsman fittingly finished the game with a six, a helicopter shot on the final ball to seal the game with Baroda needing five runs off the final ball.

Brief Scores Haryana 148-7 (H Rana 49, S Chauhan 35; K Kakade 2-7, A Sheth 1/27) lost to Baroda 150-2 (V Solanki 71 not out, K Devdhar 43, Yuzvendra Chahal 1-15)