Karnataka’s medium-pacer Abhimanyu Mithun produced a stunning 20th over against Haryana in the semi-final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament in Surat on Friday.
Defending champions Karnataka reached the final for the second year running as KL Rahul and Devdutt Padikkal made a mockery of the target. But on a batting paradise, it was Mithun’s bowling effort that stood out.
Fifties from Haryana batsmen Himanshu Rana (61) and Chaitanya Bishnoi (55) put Amit Mishra’s side on course for a big score. But Mithun, who had picked up a five-for and a hat-trick in the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy against Tamil Nadu, repeated the feat in the semi-final of the T20 tournament as well. This one was even better as he picked up all five wickets in the final over of the innings with four on the trot.
In the 20th over of the innings, he dismissed Himanshu Rana (61) and Rahul Tewatia (32) off the first two balls and completed his hat-trick by sending back Sumit Kumar (0).
There was more drama in store as Mithun got a wicket on the fourth ball, that of Amit Mishra (0), and then sent back Jayant Yadav (0) on the final ball of the over.
Haryana went from 192/3 to 194/8 in the final over. In the process, Mithun became the first Indian bowler to take a hat-trick in all three formats of India’s domestic tournaments.
He is, in all likelihood, the only bowler to pick five wickets in six balls in T20 history as ESPNCricinfo reported that at least no bowler has those many in matches for which the website has ball-by-ball data for.
While the wickets were perhaps a result of Haryana batsmen going for the big shots off every ball, the change of pace and control over length stood out. Either way, you do not take five wickets in one over just because the batsmen made mistakes. It simply does not happen every day.
Watch the over here:
Earlier in the season, Mithun had taken a hat-trick in the final over of the Vijay Hazare Trophy title clash against Tamil Nadu as Karnataka were crowned champions of the 50-over tournament.
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