Victoria are through to the one-day cup elimination final with their 48-run win over Tasmania built around a century from someone who was not even meant to be playing.
Marcus Stoinis collected player of the match honours after cracking an impressive 109, having only been brought in at the eleventh hour when allrounder Glenn Maxwell was left out of Tuesday's match for disciplinary reasons.
Maxwell was omitted from the side after failing to attend a team recovery session on Monday.
Stoinis's maiden domestic one-day cup ton was the foundation of Victoria's imposing 6-320.
The No.3 cleared the fence six times at the compact North Sydney Oval in a 112-ball knock, and shared a pivotal fourth-wicket partnership of 130 with Peter Handscomb who made a run-a-ball 67.
Victoria also impressed with the ball with Tasmania virtually out of the contest at 7-230 off 43.1 overs when bad light halted proceedings.
With no further play possible the Duckworth-Lewis method came into effect and the Tigers still found themselves 48 runs short of the target.
"Hopefully we are peaking at the right time in the tournament," Stoinis said.
"We have bowled well on this wicket in the past few games, and today is probably the first time our batting has really come together."
Stoinis's ton and the combined form of the Victorian top-order leaves the Bushrangers with a selection headache for Friday's play-off.
"I needed to score some runs, and I guess it was good timing to do it today," Stoinis said.
"It means a lot to get my first one for Victoria in this competition."
Victoria will face South Australia on Friday provided the Redbacks defeat the bottom-placed Cricket Australia XI on Wednesday, otherwise Tasmania will hang onto third place.
Tasmania were well placed at one stage in what was effectively a play-off for second, with their reliable opening pair of Ben Dunk (54) and Tim Paine (47) putting on 99 at over six runs an over.
However, Test fast bowler James Pattinson (3-35) claimed two quick wickets to put Tasmania on the back foot as the run-rate declined amid a steady loss of wickets.
The winner of Friday's elimination final will meet NSW in the final on Sunday.
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