By: Tarish Bhatt
Two hattricks in a day is something really unheard of. It may not have happened at all in the history of T20 cricket. But the IPL fans across the world witnessed it on Friday. The first one came from Samuel Badree.
The second hattrick happened after Australia’s Andrew James Tye from ran through the Rising Pune Supergiant to claim five wickets in the match. Unlike Badree, Tye’s hat-trick was a game changer for the Gujarat Lions.
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Gujarat won the first match of the tournament while the Royal Challengers couldn’t capitalise after Badree delivered a miraculous open spell to reduce Mumbai Indians to no-contest.
The sort of low-scoring game became very interesting contest after Mumbai lost four wickets. But, Kieron Pollard had other plans and almost single-handedly changed the complexion of the game with some lusty blows.
There were other two captains from two teams – Kohli and Raina – who also made a mark on the day. It all began with IPL’s biggest star Kohli making his comeback. He recovered from his shoulder injury.
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Kohli started off very cautiously and then cut loose soon after to make a 67 off 47 deliveries. It wasn’t a typical Kohli knock. That fact that he was coming out of an injury was evident when he wasn’t able to strike the ball cleanly.
Even Pollard wasn’t doing great with the bat. He just got into the groove when his team needed him the most with an outstanding knock. Even Gujarat’s captain Suresh Raina played a cameo and rounded up the match.
Incidentally, this was also Gujarat’s first win after three matches while Pune have lost three of their game from four outings. The Mumbai team has is peaking very early and is right on top of the table with three wins from four games.
