Sunday’s Ahmedabad tie between Kolkata Knight Riders and Gujarat Titans witnessed an unbelievable end. The defending champions were in driver’s seat after their first ever 200-plus total in IPL, but Venkatesh Iyer brought KKR back into the match with an impressive 83-run knock. And just when it looked like KKR would run away with the game, stand-in skipper Rashid Khan demolished their hopes with a historic IPL hat-trick which saw him remove some of the elites of KKR.
Rashid had a lot on his shoulders on Sunday evening as regular captain Hardik Pandya was rested for the match. He did not have a perfect start to his bowling as well, having conceded 35 runs in his first three overs. But he trusted his skills as brought himself into the attack in the 17th over.
With a bit of luck, Rashid removed Andre Russell for just one run in the very first ball of the match. Against the googly spinning towards the leg side, Russell looked to go for the slog across, but ended up getting an outside edge that bounced off his thigh pads and landed into the hands of wicketkeeper KS Bharat. In the next ball, he dismissed Sunil Narine for a golden duck and ity was the googly again that did the magic. And it worked again in the very next ball, as he dismissed Shardul Thakur for a golden duck as well.
With those three dismissals, Rashid became the bowler with most ever hat-tricks in T20 cricket. He now has a hat-trick in T20Is, Big Bash League, Caribbean Premier League and the IPL. This was the seventh time an overseas player picked up a hat-trick in IPL, the last being Sam Curran for Punjab Kings in 2019. He also became the third captain to take an IPL hat-trick after Yuvraj Singh (2009 – Twice) and Shane Watson (2014).
Despite Rashid’s efforts, Rinku Singh magically turned the game with his fiery streak of five straight sixes in the final over that helped KKR seal a thriller of a win in Ahmedabad.
