New Delhi:
Abhimanyu Mithun did a Lasith Malinga in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy semi-final between Karnataka and Haryana at the Lalabhai Contractor stadium in Surat on Friday. However, he went one better than Malinga as he ended with five wickets in one over to create history. This did not look possible after Haryana were inserted in by Karnataka and they were given a great start by Chaitanya Bishnoi and Harshal Patel. Haryana had a great start in the powerplay and the 67-run stand was broken by Shreyas Gopal. Himanshu Rana and Bishnoi helped India go past 100 but the 80-run stand between Rana and Rahul Tewatia got Haryana closer to 200. At 192/4 in the 19th over, Haryana looked all set for a score in excess of 210.
Then came Mithun and he proceeded to change the entire course of the match. Rana was the first to go when he fell for 61 and he followed it up with the wicket of Tewatia for 32. Mithun achieved the hat-trick when he had Sumit Kumar caught and he matched Lasith Malinga's feat of four wickets in four balls when Amit Mishra was caught by Krishnappa Gowtham. Although he did not take five in five, he managed to get rid of Jayant Yadav when he holed out to Rahul and Haryana ended up on 194/8. Mithun ended with figures of 4-0-39-5 with all five wickets coming in the last over.
In fact, this is not the first time Mithun has taken a hat-trick in this season. In the final of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he took a hat-trick on his birthday to take 5/34 and ensured Karnataka would win the title while in the semi-final, his haul has kept Karnataka on course for a win in the domestic Twenty20 tournament.
In response, Karnataka were boosted by a massive stand of 125 between Devdutt Padikkal and KL Rahul. Padikkal continued his good run by smashing 11 fours and four sixes while Rahul blasted four boundaries and six sixes in his knock of 66 off 31 balls. Mayank Agarwal blasted three sixes and he reached 30 off 14 balls with Jayant Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ashish Hooda all conceding an economy rate of over 10 runs an over. Harshal Patel and Jayant Yadav took the wickets but Karnataka stormed to an eight-wicket win.
Also Read | Abhimanyu Mithun Takes Hat-Trick On Birthday, Karnataka Beat Tamil Nadu To Win Vijay Hazare Trophy
Karnataka will now face the winner of the clash between Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. Mumbai, the defending champions, were knocked out despite winning their last match against Punjab by 22 runs but they needed to restrict them to under 150 in order to make it to the next round. A win for Karnataka in the Syed Mushtaq Ali will continue their dominance in the domestic circuit, having already won the Vijay Hazare Trophy by defeating Tamil Nadu in the final at the M Chinnaswamy stadium.
