Mishra's hat-trick takes stuff out of Pune Warriors - poor show by Mumbai Indians

A hat trick taking 3 wickets in 3 consecutive deliveries is a great achievement; do you remember this spinner who took one last year ~ clue, it was a match between Rajasthan Royals and Pune Warriors…….. 2nd clue – his victims were : Jesse Ryder, Sourav Ganguly and Robin Uthappa.

At Sawai Mansingh Stadium, it was hyped to be a clash of legends, 3 of Cricket’s greatest run-getters – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Ricky Ponting featuring……. ~ more hype of the slapgate Harbhajan and Sreesanth coming to terms again…………. Sreesanth did not play and the match was so one sided that made one think why invest so much on players and support staff to end up less than 100 getting bowled out inside 20 overs.. poor performance by Mumbai Indians……..

Prior to that at Pune, the home team posted another dismal performance, chasing a low score and having the match well in hands, they crumbled ~ and that one over of wristy Amit Mishra had class written all over……………….

It was a day when Sunrisers Hyderabad successfully defended a low score of 119 ~ Amit Mishra rose to take 83 overall IPL wickets just 2 behind the slinga Malinga.  Chasing a small socre, PWI were 101/4 at one point but lost 6 wickets for a mere addition of 7 runs ~ and what a collapse it was – and was contributed by some mad batting by the Warriors swinging wildly and getting gout…

Warriors were in the game throughout except for those final moments of madness. Bhuvneshwar Kumar moved it in and out and ran through the Sunrisers top order to leave them gasping at 17 for 4, including the wicket of stand-in captain Cameron White for a golden duck.

When Amit Mishra came on to bowl that 19th over – 14 was needed off 12 balls – looked pretty easy.  Manish Pandey was playing.. he took a single of the first; 2nd Mathews swung wildly and was out caught in the deep.  Pandey having crossed over took another single.  4th ball Buvanesh Kumar was out lbw – slight doubt but none in the mind of Asad Rauf; Rahul Sharma made an ugly slog and was bowled and off the last – with a googly, Mishra left Dinda completely bemused and bowled – it was all over…

Mishra collided and fell ~ but felled PWI

Another hat-trick for Amit Mishra ~ his 3rd in IPL thus far…….

At Sawai Mansingh stadium, Dravid won the toss, did not come to open and all his moves paid off…  Watson and Rahane had a good start; once Watson left, came the surprise pack of Yagnik who scored a 34 off 24 ball..  Hodge also made runs and MI had to chase 180 runs……..

The answer to the Q in first para is Ajit Chandila…  Sachin and Ponting opened the batting and it was the lanky off spinner Chandila who bowled the first over…. of his 4th delivery, he had Sachin caught at short fine leg..  Sachin out for 1… more was to happen, in the 3rd over, Chandila caught and bowled Ponting … ~ and surprisingly did not bowl thereafter in the match  ~ at the other end it was left-arm spinner Ankeet Chavan, who too was successful.  Pollard was promoted but was done in by an inswinger from Stuart Binny in the eighth over, after which Mumbai were only looking to limit the margin of defeat. They didn't do too well on that front either, slumping to their biggest loss in terms of runs getting bowled out for a paltry 92, loss by 87 runs.  Rajasthan Royals 179 (Rahane 68*, Yagnik 34) beat Mumbai Indians 92 (Karthik 30, Faulkner 3-16)

The hat-trick takers in IPL have been :  Amit Mishra (3);  Yuvraj Singh (2);  Makhaya Ntini;  Rohit Sharma;  Praveen Kumar;  Ajit Chandila and Sunil Narine

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

Photos courtesy : iplt20.com